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LIGHT  AHEAD  FOE  THE  NEGEO 


LIGHT    AHEAD 
FOR    THE    NEGRO 


BY 

E.  A   JOHNSON 


AUTHOR    OF 


The  School  History  of  the  Negro  Race 

Colored  Soldiers  in  the  Spanish  American  War 

The  Negro  Almanac 


THE   GRAFTON   PRESS 
NEW     YORK 


Copyright  1904  by 
E.    A.    JOHNSON. 


PREFACE 

THE  author  dedicates  this  work  to  the  thou 
sands  of  sympathetic  and  well  wishing 
friends  of  the  Negro  race.  He  is  trying 
to  show  how  the  Negro  problem  can  be  solved  in 
peace  and  good  will  rather  than  by  brutality. 
His  idea  is  that  the  Golden  Rule  furnishes  the 
only  solution. 

He  believes  that  at  the  bottom  of  southern 
society  there  is  a  vein  of  sympathy  and  helpful 
ness  for  the  Negro  and  that  this  feeling  should  be 
cultivated  and  nourished  that  it  may  grow  stronger 
and  finally  supplant  harsher  sentiments. 

There  are  two  factions  striving  for  the  mastery 
of  the  south  to-day,  one  seeking  political  power  on 
the  idea  that  Negro  manhood  is  to  be  crushed  and 
serfdom  established,  and  the  other  willing  that  the 
Negro  should  have  a  freeman's  chance  and  work 
out  his  destiny  as  best  he  can  with  the  powers 
God  has  given  him.  This  faction  is  ready  to  give 
its  sympathy  and  help,  and  it  is  the  efforts  of  this 


vi  Preface 

class  that  the  author  desires  to  endorse  and  en 
courage. 

The  story  weaved  into  the  work  is  subordinate 
to  the  discussion  of  facts,  and  not  paramount ;  it 
is  intended  to  be  mild,  thus  putting  it  in  keeping 
with  the  character  of  the  heroine  whose  deeds  it 
portrays;  and  should  the  day  ever  come  when 
America  can  arise  to  the  height  of  adopting  and 
following  her  sentiments,  it  will  then  indeed  be 
the  "  Sweet  land  of  liberty,"  for  the  black  as  well 
as  the  white  man. 

E.  A.  JOHNSON. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  THE  LOST  AIRSHIP— UNCONSCIOUSNESS,     .  ;  '  1 
II.  TO    EARTH    AGAIN— ONE    HUNDRED   YEARS 

LATER,        .        .        .        . 6 

III.  AT  THE  PUBLIC  LIBRARY  WITH  IRENE,        .  13 

IV.  NOW  AND  THEN, 21 

Y.  A  VISIT  TO  PUBLIC  BUILDINGS,        ...  99 

VI.  A  RIDE  WITH  IRENE,         ,        .        .        .        .        .  10? 
VII.  DR.  NEWELL  AND  WORK  OF  THE  YOUNG  LA 
DIES'  GUILD,         . Ill 

VIII.  WITH  IRENE  AGAIN, 116 

IX.  THE  PRIZE  ESSAY, 120 

X.  SAD  NEWS  FOR  IRENE, 1S1 


Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 


CHAPTER  I 

THE    LOST    AIRSHIP UNCONSCIOUSNESS 

FROM  my  youth  up  I  had  been  impressed 
with  the  idea  of  working  among  the  Ne 
groes  of  the  Southern  states.     My  father 
was  an  abolitionist  before  the  war  and  afterward 
an  ardent  supporter  of  missionary  efforts  in  the 
South,    and   his   children   naturally   imbibed  his 
spirit  of  readiness  and  willingness  at  all  times  to 
assist  the  cause  of  the  freedmen. 

I  concluded  in  the  early  years  of  my  young 
manhood  that  I  could  render  the  Negroes  no 
greater  service  than  by  spending  my  life  in  their 
midst,  helping  to  fit  them  for  the  new  citizenship 
that  had  developed  as  a  result  of  the  war.  My 
mind  was  made  up  throughout  my  college  course 
at  Yale  ;  and,  while  I  did  not  disclose  my  purpose, 
I  resolved  to  go  South  as  soon  as  I  was  through 
college  and  commence  my  chosen  life-work.  In 
keeping  with  this  design,  I  kept  posted  on  every 

A  1 


Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 


phase  of  the  so-called  "  Negro  problem  "  ;  I  made 
it  my  constant  study.  When  I  had  finished  col 
lege  I  made  application  to  the  Union  Missionary 
Association  for  a  position  as  teacher  in  one  of  their 
Negro  schools  in  a  town  in  Georgia,  and  after  the 
usual  preliminaries  I  received  my  certificate  of 
appointment. 

It  was  June,  1906,  the  year  that  dirigible  air 
ships  first  came  into  actual  use,  after  the  innumer 
able  efforts  of  scores  of  inventors  to  solve  final 
problems,  which  for  a  long  time  seemed  insur 
mountable.  Up  to  this  time  the  automobile — 
now  relegated  to  commercial  uses,  or,  like  the 
bicycle,  to  the  poorer  classes — had  been  the  favored 
toy  of  the  rich,  and  it  was  thought  that  the  now 
common  one  hundred  and  one  hundred  and  fifty 
horse-power  machines  were  something  wonderful 
and  that  their  speed — a  snail's  pace,  compared 
with  the  airship — was  terrific.  It  will  be  remem 
bered  that  inside  of  a  few  months  after  the  first 
really  successful  airships  appeared  a  wealthy  man 
in  society  could  hardly  have  hoped  to  retain  his 
standing  in  the  community  without  owning  one, 
or  at  least  proving  that  he  had  placed  an  order  for 
one  with  a  fashionable  foreign  manufacturer,  so 
great  was  the  craze  for  them,  and  so  widespread 


The  Lost  Airship — Unconsciousness       3 

was  the  industry — thanks  to  the  misfortune  of  the 
poor  devil  who  solved  the  problem  and  neglected 
to  protect  his  rights  thoroughly.  Through  this 
fatal  blunder  on  his  part,  their  manufacture  and 
their  use  became  world-wide,  almost  at  once,  in 
spite  of  countless  legal  attempts  to  limit  the  pro 
duction,  in  order  to  keep  up  the  cost. 

A  wealthy  friend  of  mine  had  a  ship  of  the 
finest  Parisian  make,  the  American  machines  still 
being  unfashionable,  in  which  we  had  often  made 
trips  together  and  which  he  ran  himself.  As 
I  was  ready  to  go  to  my  field  of  labor,  he  invited 
me  to  go  with  him  to  spend  from  Saturday  to  Sun 
day  in  the  City  of  Mexico,  which  I  had  never  seen, 
and  I  accepted. 

We  started,  as  usual,  from  the  new  aerial  pier  at 
the  foot  of  West  Fifty-ninth  Street,  New  York 
City,  then  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world,  about 
one  o'clock,  in  the  midst  of  a  cloud  of  machines 
bound  for  country  places  in  different  parts  of  the 
United  States  and  we  were  peacefully  seated  after 
dinner,  enjoying  the  always  exhilarating  sen 
sation  of  being  suspended  in  space  without  sup 
port — for  my  friend  had  drawn  the  covering  from 
the  floor  of  clear  glass  in  the  car,  which  was  com 
ing  into  use  in  some  of  the  new  machines — when 


Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 


there  was  a  terrific  report.      The  motor  had  ex 
ploded  ! 

We  looked  at  each  other  in  horror.  This  indeed 
was  what  made  air-travelling  far-and-away  the 
most  exciting  of  sports.  Human  beings  had  not 
yet  come  to  regard  with  indifference  accidents 
which  occurred  in  mid-air. 

My  friend  picked  his  way  through  a  tangled 
mass  of  machinery  to  the  instruments.  We  were 
rising  rapidly  and  the  apparatus  for  opening  the 
valve  of  the  balloon  was  broken.  Without  say 
ing  a  word,  he  started  to  climb  up  the  tangle  of 
wire  ropes  to  the  valve  itself ;  a  very  dangerous 
proceeding,  because  many  of  the  ropes  were 
loosened  from  their  fastenings.  We  suddenly  en 
countered  a  current  of  air  that  changed  our  course 
directly  east.  (We  had  been  steering  south  and 
had  gone  about  six  hundred  miles.)  It  drew  us 
up  higher  and  higher.  I  glanced  through  the  floor 
but  the  earth  was  almost  indistinguishable,  and 
was  disappearing  rapidly.  There  was  absolutely 
nothing  that  I  could  do.  I  looked  up  again  at  my 
friend,  who  was  clambering  up  rather  clumsily, 
I  remember  thinking  at  the  moment.  The  tangle 
of  ropes  and  wires  looked  like  a  great  grape  vine. 
Just  then  the  big  ship  gave  a  lurch.  He  slipped 


The  Lost  Airship — Unconsciousness       5 

and  pitched  forward,  holding  on  by  one  hand. 
Involuntarily,  I  closed  my  eyes  for  a  moment. 
When  I  opened  them  again,  he  was  gone  ! 

My  feelings  were  indescribable.  I  commenced 
to  lose  consciousness,  owing  to  the  altitude  and 
the  ship  was  ascending  more  rapidly  every  mo 
ment. 

Finally  I  became  as  one  dead. 


CHAPTER  II 

TO  EARTH  AGAIN ONE  HUNDRED  YEARS  LATER 

ONE  day  an  archaic-looking  flying  machine, 
a  curiosity,  settled  from  aerial  heights  on 
to  the  lawn  of  one  Dr.  Newell,  of  Phoenix, 
Georgia. 

When  found  I  was  unconscious  and  even  after 
I  had  revived  I  could  tell  nothing  of  my  where 
abouts,  as  to  whither  I  was  going,  or  whence  I  had 
come  ;  I  was  simply  there,  "  a  stranger  in  a  strange 
land,"  without  being  able  to  account  for  any 
thing. 

I  noticed  however  that  the  people  were  not  those 
I  had  formerly  left  or  that  I  expected  to  see. 
I  was  bewildered — my  brain  was  in  a  whirl — I 
lapsed  again  into  a  trance-like  state. 

When  I  regained  my  full  consciousness  I  found 
myself  comfortably  ensconced  in  a  bed  in  an  airy 
room  apparently  in  the  home  of  some  well-to-do 
person.  The  furniture  and  decorations  in  the 

6 


One  Hundred  Years  Later 


room  were  of  a  fashion  I  had  never  seen  before, 
and  the  odd-looking  books  in  the  bookcase  near 
the  bed  were  written  by  authors  whose  names  I 
did  not  know.  I  seemed  to  have  awakened  from 
a  dream,  a  dream  that  had  gone  from  me,  but  that 
had  changed  my  life. 

Looking  around  in  the  room,  I  found  that  I  was 
the  only  occupant.  I  resolved  to  get  up  and  test 
the  matter.  I  might  still  be  dreaming.  I  arose, 
dressed  myself — my  suit  case  lay  on  a  table,  just 
as  I  had  packed  it — and  hurriedly  went  downstairs, 
wondering  if  I  were  a  somnambulist  and  thinking 
I  had  better  be  careful  lest  I  fall  and  injure  my 
self.  I  heard  voices  and  attempted  to  speak  and 
found  my  voice  unlike  any  of  those  I  heard  in  the 
house.  I  was  just  passing  out  of  the  front  door, 
intending  to  walk  around  on  the  large  veranda 
that  extended  on  both  sides  of  the  house,  when  I 
came  face  to  face  with  a  very  attractive  young 
lady  who  I  subsequently  learned  was  the  niece  of 
my  host  and  an  expert  trained  nurse.  She  had 
taken  charge  of  me  ever  since  my  unexpected 
arrival  on  her  uncle's  lawn. 

She  explained  that  she  had  been  nursing  me 
and  seemed  very  much  mortified  that  I  should 
have  come  to  consciousness  at  a  moment  when 


8  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

she  was  not  present,  and  have  gotten  out  of  the 
room  and  downstairs  before  she  knew  it.  I  could 
see  chagrin  in  her  countenance  and  to  reassure 
her  I  said,  "  You  need  n't  worry  about  your  bird's 
leaving  the  cage,  he  shall  not  fly  away,  for  in  the 
first  place  he  is  quite  unable  to,  and  in  the  sec 
ond  place  why  should  he  flee  from  congenial  com 
pany  ?  " 

"I  am  glad  you  are  growing  better,"  she  said, 
"  and  I  am  sure  we  are  all  very  much  interested 
in  your  speedy  recovery,  Mr. —  What  shall  I  call 
you  ?  "  she  said  hesitatingly. 

I  attempted  to  tell  her  my  name,  but  I  could 
get  no  further  than,  "  My  name  is — "  I  did  not 
know  my  own  name  ! 

She  saw  my  embarrassment  and  said,  "  0,  never 
mind  the  name,  I  '11  let  you  be  my  anonymous 
friend.  Tell  me  where  you  got  that  very  old  fly 
ing  machine  ?  " 

Of  course  I  knew,  but  I  could  not  tell  her.  My 
memory  on  this  point  had  failed  me  also.  She 
then  remarked  further  that  papers  found  in  my 
pocket  indicated  that  a  Mr.  Gilbert  Twitchell  had 
been  appointed  to  a  position  as  teacher  in  a  Mis 
sionary  School  in  the  town  of  Ebenezer,  Georgia, 
in  the  year  1906,  and  inquired  if  these  "old 


One  Hundred  Years  Later  9 

papers "  would  help  me  in  locating  my  friends. 
She  left  me  for  a  moment  and  returned  with  sev 
eral  papers,  a  diary  and  a  large  envelope  contain 
ing  a  certificate  of  appointment  to  said  school. 

She  stated  that  inquiry  had  already  been  made 
and  that  "  old  records  "  showed  that  a  person  by 
the  name  of  Twitchell  had  been  appointed  in  1906, 
according  to  the  reading  of  the  certificate,  and 
that  while  en  route  to  his  prospective  field  of  labor 
in  an  air-ship  he  was  supposed  to  have  come  to  an 
untimely  death,  as  nothing  had  been  seen  or  heard 
of  him  since.  Further  than  that  the  official  rec 
ords  did  not  go. 

"  Now,  we  should  be  very  glad  to  have  you  tell 
us  how  you  came  by  that  certificate,"  she  sug 
gested. 

I  was  aghast.  I  was  afraid  to  talk  to  her  or  to 
look  about  me.  And  the  more  fully  I  came  to 
myself  the  more  I  felt  that  I  did  not  dare  to  ask  a 
question.  The  shock  of  one  answer  might  kill  me. 

I  summoned  all  my  strength,  and  spoke  hur 
riedly,  more  to  prevent  her  speaking  again  than 
to  say  anything. 

"  Perhaps  I  can  tell  you  something  later  on," 
I  said  hoarsely.  "  I  find  my  memory  quite  cloudy, 
in  fact,  I  seem  to  be  dreaming." 


10  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

She  saw  my  misery  and  suggested  that  I  go 
into  "  the  room  used  to  cure  nervousness "  and 
that  I  remain  as  long  as  possible.  I  passed  stu 
pidly  through  the  door  she  held  open  for  me  and 
had  hardly  sat  down  before  I  felt  soothed.  The 
only  color  visible  was  violet, — walls,  ceiling,  furni 
ture,  carpet,  all  violet  of  different  shades.  An 
artificial  light  of  the  same  color  filled  the  room. 
And  the  air  ! — What  was  there  in  it  ? 

A  desk  was  at  the  other  end  of  the  large  apart 
ment.  As  my  eyes  roved  about  the  strange  look 
ing  place  I  saw  on  it  an  ordinary  calendar  pad, 
the  only  thing  in  the  room  that  closely  resembled 
objects  I  had  seen  before.  The  moment  that  I 
realized  what  it  was  I  felt  as  though  I  was  about 
to  have  a  nervous  chill.  I  dared  not  look  at  it, 
even  from  that  distance.  But  the  delicious  air, 
the  strength-giving  light  revived  me  in  spite  of 
myself.  For  full  five  minutes  I  sat  there,  staring, 
before  starting  over  to  look  at  it;  for  though  I 
knew  not  who  I  was,  and  though  I  had  passed 
through  only  two  rooms  of  the  house,  and  had 
met  only  one  person,  I  had  divined  the  truth  a 
thousand  times. 

As  I  slowly  neared  it  I  saw  the  day  of  the 
month,  the  twenty-fourth.  Nearer  and  nearer  I 


One  Hundred  Years  Later  11 

came,  finally  closing  my  eyes  as  the  date  of  the 
year  in  the  corner  became  almost  legible — just  as 
I  had  done  in  the  car  'of  the  air-ship,  that  awful 
moment.  I  moved  a  little  nearer.  I  could  read  it 
now !  I  opened  my  eyes  and  glanced,  then 
wildly  tore  the  pads  apart,  to  see  if  they  were  all 
alike — and  fell  to  the  floor  once  more. 

It  was  the  year  two  thousand  and  six,  just  one 
hundred  years  from  the  date  of  my  appointment 
to  the  position  of  a  teacher  in  the  South ! 

In  a  short  time  I  regained  complete  conscious 
ness,  and  under  the  influence  of  that  wonderful 
room  became  almost  myself  again.  I  learned  that 
I  had  not  really  been  left  alone  but  had  been  ob 
served,  through  a  device  for  that  purpose,  by  both 
the  doctor  and  his  niece,  and  on  her  return  I  re 
lated  my  whole  story  to  her  as  far  as  I  could  then 
remember  it. 

The  strangest  and  most  unaccountable  part 
was  that  though  I  had  been  away  from  the  earth 
about  one  hundred  years,  yet,  here  I  was  back 
again  still  a  young  man,  showing  no  traces  of  age 
and  I  had  lived  a  hundred  years.  This  was  after 
ward  accounted  for  by  the  theory  that  at  certain 
aerial  heights  the  atmosphere  is  of  such  a  char- 


12  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

acter  that  no  physical  changes  take  place  in  bodies 
permitted  to  enter  it. 

The  physical  wants  of  my  body  seemed  to  have 
been  suspended,  and  animation  arrested  until  the 
zone  of  atmosphere  immediately  surrounding  the 
earth  was  reached  again,  when  gradually  life  and 
consciousness  returned. 

I  have  no  recollection  of  anything  that  tran 
spired  after  I  lost  consciousness  and  the  most  I 
can  say  of  it  all  is  that  the  experience  was  that  of 
one  going  to  sleep  at  one  end  of  his  journey  and 
waking  up  at  his  destination. 


CHAPTER  III 

AT    THE    PUBLIC    LIBRARY    WITH    IRENE 

THE  next  time  I  met  my  nurse  was  by 
chance.  I  saw  her  at  the  public  library 
near  Dr.  Ne well's  house,  where  I  often  went 
to  sit  and  think  the  first  few  days  after  my  re 
birth  into  the  world.  She  had  left  the  Newell 
residence  on  the  night  of  the  day  she  had  put  me 
in  the  violet  room,  being  called  to  some  special 
duty  elsewhere.  I  approached  her  with  a  kindly 
salutation  which  she  reciprocated  in  a  manner  indi 
cating  that  she  was  pleased  to  meet  me.  In  the 
meantime  I  had  found  out  her  name — Irene  Davis 
— and  had  also  found  out  that  an  elective  course  in 
a  training  school  for  scientific  nursing  was  accord 
ing  to  the  custom  of  the  times,  which  regarded 
such  a  course  as  indispensable  to  the  education 
of  a  liberally  trained  young  woman. 

Our  conversation  drifted  along  as  to  my  per 
sonal  comforts  until  I  told  her  that  I  had  heard 

13 


14  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

that  I  was  to  be  called  upon  to  deliver  a  written 
account  of  my  recollections  of  the  past,  especially 
in  reference  to  the  Negro  question. 

"I  suppose  Dr.  Newell  is  at  the  bottom  of  that/' 
she  remarked,  "he  is  so  intensely  interested  in 
the  Negro  question  that  he  would  be  the  first  one 
to  make  the  suggestion.  I  really  believe  that  he 
refused  to  allow  you  to  be  taken  to  the  City  Hos 
pital  when  you  were  found  on  his  lawn  because 
he  almost  divined  that  you  might  have  a  message 
from  another  age  for  him  on  that  subject.  The 
city  authorities  yielded  to  his  wishes  and  assigned 
me  to  assist  in  caring  for  you  at  his  residence,  in 
stead  of  at  the  hospital. 

"  I  found  very  little  to  do,  however,  but  would 
like  to  recall  to  you  the  beneficial  effects  of  the 
violet  room,  which  I  see  had  the  desired  results. 
It  always  does,  and  many  people  who  can  afford 
it,  especially  physicians,  are  now  installing  these 
rooms  in  their  houses  for  the  benefit  of  neurotic 
patients,  on  whom  the  violet  rays  of  electricity, 
coupled  with  neurium,  a  newly  discovered  chemical 
preparation,  similar  to  radium,  has  a  most  remark 
able  effect." 

I  remarked  that  I  had  taken  no  medicine  and 
really  felt  better  than  ever  in  either  of  my  lives. 


At  the  Public  Library  with  Irene       15 

"  Well/'  said  she,  laughing,  "  I  trust  you  may  be 
able  to  recall  all  about  the  past  and  give  a  most 
excellent  account  of  it  in  your  paper  for  the 
Bureau  of  Public  Utility — and  don't  fail  to  send  me 
a  copy  ! " 

"  Are  you  at  all  interested  in  the  question,"  I 
asked. 

"  All  Southerners  are  interested  in  that  question. 
I  am  a  teacher  in  a  Sunday  School  for  Negro 
children  and  a  member  of  a  Young  Ladies  Guild 
which  was  organized  expressly  for  reaching 
Negro  children  that  may  need  help.  We  visit 
the  families  and  talk  with  the  parents,  impress 
on  them  ideas  of  economy,  direct  them  in  caring 
for  the  sick,  and  instruct  them  in  the  most 
scientific  methods  of  sanitation.  I  am  really  fond 
of  these  people  and  the  happiest  moments  of  my 
life  are  spent  with  them — they  are  of  a  differ 
ent  temperament  from  us,  so  mild  and  good  na- 
tured, — so  complacent  and  happy  in  their  religious 
worship  and  their  music  is  simply  enchanting  ! — 
Don't  you  like  to  hear  them  sing,  Mr.  Twitch- 
ell?" 

I  remarked  that  I  was  very  fond  of  their  sing 
ing,  and  that  I  had  been  delighted  with  a  visit  I 
had  recently  made  to  the  Dvorak  Conservatory, 


16  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

where  the  Negro's  musical  talent  seemed  to  have 
been  miraculously  developed. 

I  further  remarked,  to  myself,  "  How  congenial 
in  tastes  and  sympathy  we  seem  to  be,  and  how 
beautiful  you  are  !  "  She  moved  me  strangely  as 
she  stood  there  with  her  black  hair,  rosy  cheeks, 
large  good-natured  black  eyes,  her  Venus-like 
poise  of  neck  and  shoulders,  and  a  mouth  neither 
large  nor  small  but  full  of  expression,  and  show 
ing  a  wealth  of  pearls  when  she  laughed — and  all 
this  coupled  with  such  noble  aspirations,  and 
such  deep  womanly  sympathy. 

I  said  to  her,  "  Miss  Davis,  I  am  certainly  glad 
to  learn  that  our  sentiments  on  the  Negro  question 
coincide  so  thoroughly  and  if  any  encouragement 
were  needed,  I  should  certainly  feel  like  offering 
it,  as  a  stimulus  in  your  efforts." 

"  All  humanity  needs  encouragement,"  she  re 
plied,  "  and  I  am  human ;  and  so  are  these  people 
around  us  who  are  of  a  different  race.  They 
need  encouragement  and  in  my  humble  way  I 
hope  to  be  of  some  service  to  them.  Their 
chances  have  not  been  as  favorable  as  ours,  but 
they  have  been  faithful  and  true  with  the  talents 
they  have." 

"  So  I  understand  you  are  assisting  in  this  work 


At  the  Public  Library  with  Irene       17 

more  from  a  sense  of  duty  than  as  a  diversion  ?  " 
I  observed. 

"  Yes,  that  is  true/'  she  said,  "  but  nevertheless 
I  really  get  considerable  recreation  in  it.  I  find 
these  people  worthy  of  assistance  and  competent 
to  fill  many  places  that  they  otherwise  could  not 
but  for  the  help  of  our  Guild." 

"  So  you  have  found  that  success  does  not  al 
ways  come  to  the  worthy,"  I  suggested,  "  if  those 
who  are  worthy  have  no  outside  influence  ?  I  can 
remember  people  who  worked  hard  all  their  lives 
for  promotion  and  who  not  only  did  not  get  it, 
but  often  witnessed  others  less  skilled  and  deserv 
ing  than  themselves  pushed  forward  ahead  of  them. 
This  was  especially  true  of  the  Negro  race  in  my 
time.  The  Negroes  were  told  that  Negro  ability 
would  sell  for  as  much  in  the  market  as  white,  but 
while  this  was  encouraging  in  some  respects  and 
true  in  many  cases,  it  could  by  no  means  be  laid 
down  as  a  rule." 

"  I  agree  with  you,"  she  said,  "  in  part ;  for  the 
feeling  no  doubt  prevails  among  some  people  that 
the  lines  of  cleavage  should  move  us  naturally  to 
do  more  for  our  own  than  for  a  different  race,  and 
that  spirit  occasionally  crops  out,  but  the  spirit 
of  helpfulness  to  Negroes  has  now  become  so 
B 


18  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

popular  that  it  permeates  all  classes  and  there  is 
practically  no  opposition  to  them." 

"  You  are  a  long  way  removed  from  the  South 
of  the  past/'  said  I,  "  where  to  have  done  such 
work  as  you  are  engaged  in  would  have  disgraced 
you,  and  have  branded  you  for  social  ostracism." 

She  replied  that  there  was  no  criticism  at  all  for 
engaging  in  such  work  but  only  for  doing  more 
for  one  race  than  another. 

"  You  Georgians  had  degenerated  in  my  day/' 
I  remarked.  "  The  Southern  colonies  under  such 
men  as  Oglethorpe  seemed  to  have  higher  ideals 
than  had  their  descendants  of  later  times.  Ogle 
thorpe  was  opposed  to  slavery  and  refused  to  al 
low  it  in  the  Colony  of  Georgia  while  he  was 
governor ;  he  was  also  a  friend  to  the  Indians  and 
to  Whitfield  in  his  benevolent  schemes,  but  the 
Georgian  of  my  day  was  a  different  character  al 
together  from  the  Oglethorpe  type.  He  justified 
slavery  and  burned  Negroes  at  the  stake,  and  the 
6  Cracker  class '  were  a  long  ways  removed  from 
the  Oglethorpe  type  of  citizenship,  both  in  ap 
pearance  and  intelligence.  I  notice,  too,  Miss 
Davis,  that  you  never  use  the  words  '  colored  peo 
ple  '  but  say  '  Negro/  instead." 

"  That  is  because  these  people  themselves  pre- 


At  the  Public  Library  with  Irene       19 

fer  to  be  called  Negroes.  They  are  proud  of  the 
term  Negro  and  feel  that  you  are  compromising 
if  you  refer  to  them  as  '  colored  people/ ' 

"  That  is  quite  a  change,  too,"  said  I,  "  from  the 
past ;  for  in  my  time  the  race  did  not  like  the  term 
Negro  so  well  because  it  sounded  so  much  like  '  nig 
ger/  which  was  a  term  of  derision.  I  notice  that 
this  term  also  has  become  obsolete  with  you — an 
other  sign  of  progress.  In  fact,  I  fear  that  the 
ideas  I  had  in  1906,  when  I  started  on  my  trip  to 
work  as  a  missionary  among  the  Negroes,  would 
be  laughed  at  now,  so  far  have  you  progressed 
beyond  me.  Indeed,  I  am  quite  confused  at  times 
in  trying  to  conform  to  my  new  conditions." 

At  this  juncture  she  suggested  that  she  had  al 
most  broken  an  engagement  by  chatting  with  me 
so  long,  and  would  have  to  hurry  off  to  meet  it. 
In  taking  her  departure  she  remarked  that  per 
haps  it  was  worth  while  to  break  an  engagement 
to  talk  with  one  who  had  had  so  unusual  an  expe 
rience.  "  I  may  be  quite  an  unusual  character," 
said  I,  "  but  probably  too  ancient  to  be  of  interest 
to  so  modern  a  person  as  yourself." 

She  did  not  reply  to  this,  but  left  with  a  smile 
and  a  roguish  twinkle  in  her  eye. 

I  found  on  inquiry  at  the  library  that  Negroes 


20  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

in  the  South  were  now  allowed  the  use  of  the 
books,  and  that  they  were  encouraged  to  read  by 
various  prizes,  offered  especially  for  those  who 
could  give  the  best  written  analyses  of  certain 
books  which  were  suggested  by  the  library  com 
mittee. 


CHAPTER  IV 

NOW    AND     THEN 


I   HAD  scarcely  recovered  my  equilibrium  and 
become  able  to  give  an  account  of  myself  be 
fore  I  was  formally  called  on  by  the  "  Chief 
of  the  Bureau  of  Public  Utility  "  of  the  country 
to  make  a  statement  about  the  Negro  problem  in 
my  time,  Dr.  Newell  having  informed  him  that  I 
was  interested  in  that  subject. 

Here  follows  the  substance  of  what  I  wrote  as 
I  read  it  over  to  Dr.  Newell  before  sending  it : 

"  Many  changes  considered  well  nigh  impossible 
one  hundred  years  ago  have  taken  place  in  al 
most  all  phases  of  the  so-called  Negro  problem. 
One  of  the  most  noticeable  instances  to  me  is 
the  absence  of  slurs  at  individual  Negroes  and 
at  the  race  as  a  whole  in  your  newspapers.  Such 
headlines  as  '  Another  Coon  Caught/  '  The  Burly 
Black  Brute  Foiled/  '  A  Ham  Colored  Nigger  in 
the  Hen  House '  and  '  This  Coon  Wants  to  be 

21 


22  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

Called  Mister/  are,  to  me,  conspicuous  by  their 
absence.  In  the  old  days,  in  referring  to  a  Negro 
who  had  made  a  speech  of  some  merit  he  was 
called  '  Professor/  but  in  making  a  reference  to 
him  as  being  connected  with  politics  the  same  per 
son  was  dubbed  (  Jim  '  or  <  Tom.'  Fights  between 
three  white  men  and  two  Negroes  were  published, 
under  glaring  headlines,  as  '  Race  Riots.'  The 
usual  custom  of  dealing  out  the  vices  of  the  Ne 
gro  race  as  a  morning  sensation  in  the  daily  papers 
evidently  fell  into  '  innocuous  desuetude/  and  the 
daily  papers  having  dropped  the  custom,  the  week 
lies,  which  were  merely  echoes  of  the  dailies,  also 
left  off  the  habit,  so  that  now  neither  the  city 
people  nor  farmers  have  their  prejudices  daily  and 
weekly  inflamed  by  exaggerated  portrayals  of  the 
Negroes'  shortcomings. 

"  The  character  of  no  individual  and  in  fact  of 
no  race  can  long  endure  in  America  when  under 
the  persistent  fire  of  its  newspapers.  Newspapers 
mould  public  opinion.  Your  organization  for  the 
dissemination  of  news  has  it  in  its  power  to  either 
kill  or  make  alive  in  this  respect.  Our  organiza 
tion,  called  the  News  Distributing  Bureau,  was 
formerly  in  the  hands  of  people  whose  policy  de 
signedly  necessitated  the  portrayal  of  the  Negro 


Now  and  Then  23 

in  his  worst  light  before  the  people,  in  order  that 
certain  schemes  against  the  race  might  be  fostered, 
and  seemed  to  take  special  delight  in  publishing 
every  mean  act  of  every  bad  Negro,  and  leaving 
unrecorded  the  thousands  of  credible  acts  of  the 
good  ones. 

"  Like  Lincoln's  emancipation  proclamation,  this 
wholesale  assassination  of  Negro  character  in  the 
newspapers  was  strictly  a  political  '  war  measure/ 
intended  for  political  use  only.  Its  design  was  to 
prejudice  the  race  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  and 
thus  enable  the  white  supremacy  advocates,  North 
and  South,  to  perfect  the  political  annihilation  of 
the  Negro.  The  Negro  farmer  knew  little  about 
what  was  going  on ;  he  was  making  corn  and  cot 
ton,  and  to  tell  him  in  public  assemblies  would  be 
considered  '  incendiary/  and  '  stirring  up  strife  be 
tween  the  races/  and  the  individual  who  might  be 
thus  charged  would  certainly  have  to  leave  '  be 
tween  two  suns/  as  the  phrase  was.  However, 
the  general  desire  among  leading  Negroes  was  for 
peace  at  any  sacrifice,  and  they  studiously  labored 
to  that  end.  The  South  ought  to  have  thanked 
the  Negro  preachers  and  the  Negro  school  teach 
ers  for  the  reign  of  peace  in  that  section,  because 
it  was  due  almost  wholly  to  their  efforts. 


24  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

"  Then,  too,  the  public  schools,  which  were  at 
that  period  the  boast  of  the  South,  in  support  of 
her  contention  of  friendliness  to  the  Negro,  served 
the  purpose  of  quieting  many  a  Negro  who  might 
otherwise  have  been  disposed  to  '  talk  too  much.'  * 
Be  it  remembered  that  at  this  time  it  was  consid 
ered  virtually  a  social  crime  to  employ  a  Negro  as  a 
clerk  in  a  store  or  elsewhere.  This  feeling  ex 
tended  from  Delaware  to  Texas,  and  the  thousands 
of  Negroes  who  were  coming  out  of  the  various 
public  schools,  and  the  institutions  for  higher 
training  established  by  Northern  philanthropists, 
had  practically  no  calling  open  to  them,  as  edu 
cated  men  and  women,  save  that  of  teaching. 
The  door  of  hope  was  shut  in  their  face  and  they 
were  censured  for  not  doing  better  under  such  im 
possible  handicaps.  It  was  like  closing  the  stable 
door  and  whipping  the  horse  for  not  going  in !  A 
few  entered  the  professions  of  law,  pharmacy  and 
medicine,  some  engaged  in  business,  but  no  great 
number  for  the  following  reasons  : 

"  First — In  the  professions  the  white  profes 
sional  man  was  by  habit  and  custom  very  gener- 

*  The  white  supremacy  people  accomplished  this  by  employing 
them  as  teachers.  If  they  continued  to  talk  too  much,  they  lost 
their  jobs. 


Now  and  Then  •  25 

ally  employed  by  the  colored  people,  while  the 
colored  professional  man,  by  the  conventional 
laws  of  society,  was  rarely  or  never  employed  by 
white  people. 

"  Second — The  natural  disposition  of  the  col 
ored  people  to  patronize  white  merchants  and  pro 
fessional  men  in  preference  to  their  own  was  a 
factor  to  be  reckoned  with  in  looking  for  the 
causas  rerum — a  kind  of  one-sided  arrangement 
whereby  the  whites  got  the  Negroes'  money  but 
the  Negroes  could  not  get  theirs — in  the  profes 
sions.  In  many  of  the  small  lines  of  business, 
however,  the  Negro  was  patronized  by  the 
whites. 

"  So  that — with  the  News  Bureau  making 
capital  every  morning  of  the  corruption  in  the 
race ;  with  the  efforts  of  Southern  ministers  who 
had  taken  charge  of  Northern  pulpits,  to  strew 
seeds  of  poison  by  proclaiming,  on  the  commission 
of  every  offense  by  a  Negro,  '  We  told  you  that 
the  Negro  was  not  worth  the  freedom  you  gave 
him,'  '  We  told  you  he  was  n't  fit  for  citizenship 
and  that  the  money  you  have  spent  for  his  educa 
tion  is  worse  than  wasted ; '  with  the  constant 
assertions  that  his  only  place  is  '  behind  a  mule,' 
that  education  made  him  a  greater  criminal,  that 


26  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

'  the  Southern  people  are  his  best  friends '  because 
c  we  overlook  his  follies '  and  '  treat  him  kindly 
if  he  will  stay  in  his  place ; '  with  the  money 
interests  clamoring  for  the  South  Ho  be  let 
alone '  with  the  Negro  question,  for  fear  of  un 
settling  business  and  causing  a  slump  in  Southern 
securities ;  with  the  claims  that,  to  keep  the  rail 
roads  earning  dividends,  to  keep  the  cotton  mar 
ket  active,  the  Negro  must  be  handled  according 
to  the  serfdom  or  shotgun  plan,  and  that  the  best 
task  master  so  far  found  was  the  Southern  white 
man,  who  had  proven  himself  wonderfully  adept  in 
getting  good  crops  from  Negro  labor — with  these 
and  many  other  excuses,  the  question  of  raising 
the  Negro  in  the  scale  of  civilization  was  left  to 
posterity. 

" '  What  is  he  worth  to  us  now  ?  '  That  is  the 
only  question  with  which  we  are  concerned,  was 
the  ruling  thought,  if  not  the  open  confession. 

"  Let  it  be  understood  that  statistics  (which  the 
Negro  did  not  compile)  showed  that  the  race  at 
that  time  was,  as  a  mass,  the  most  illiterate,  the 
least  thrifty,  and  the  most  shiftless  and  criminal 
of  any  class  of  American  citizens — dividing  the 
population  into  natives — Irish  emigrants,  German 
emigrants,  Italians,  Jews,  and  Poles.  This  was  a 


Now  and  Then  27 

fact  that  hurt,  regardless  of  who  was  responsible 
for  it. 

"  Then  the  question  of  color  cut  no  small  figure 
in  this  problem.  The  Negro's  color  classified  him ; 
it  rang  the  signal  bell  for  drawing ( the  color  line ' 
as  soon  as  he  was  seen,  and  it  designated  and 
pointed  him  out  as  a  marked  man,  belonging  to 
that  horrible  criminal  class  whose  revolting  deeds 
were  revealed  every  day  in  the  newspapers.  No 
wonder  he  was  shunned,  no  wonder  the  children 
and  women  were  afraid  of  him  !  The  great  mass 
of  the  people  took  the  newspaper  reports  as  true. 
They  never  read  between  the  lines  and  seldom 
read  the  corrections  of  errors  *  that  had  been  made. 
In  some  cases  the  first  report  had  been  that  a 
Negro  had  committed  a  crime,  and  later  it  was 
discovered  that  a  white  man  with  his  face  blacked 

*  "  Errors  "  like  the  following,  for  instance:  "  A  special  dispatch 
from  Charleston,  S.  C.,  to  the  Atlanta  Journal,  reads:  '  While  dy 
ing  in  Colleton  county,  former  Section  Foreman  Jones,  of  the  At 
lantic  Coast  Line  Road,  has  confessed  being  the  murderer  of  his 
wife  at  Ravenel,  S.C.,  fourteen  miles  from  Charleston,  in  May,  1902, 
for  which  crime  three  Negroes  were  lynched.  The  crime  which 
was  charged  to  the  Negroes  was  one  of  the  most  brutal  ever  com 
mitted  in  this  State,  and  after  the  capture  of  the  Negroes  quick 
work  was  made  of  them  by  the  mob.' 

"  Comment  is  certainly  superfluous.  What  must  be  the  feelings 
of  those  who  participated  in  the  lynching."  (Raleigh,  N.  C.,  Morn 
ing  Post.) 


28  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

had  been  the  perpetrator.  Some  one  has  said, 
'  Let  me  write  the  songs  of  a  people  and  I  will 
control  their  religious  sentiments/  In  a  country 
like  America  where  the  newspapers  are  so  plenti 
ful  and  where  people  rely  on  them  so  implicitly, 
those  who  control  the  newspapers  may  be  said  to 
control  the  views  of  the  people  on  almost  any 
public  question.  With  30  per  cent  of  the  Negro 
population  illiterate,  with  a  criminal  record  double 
that  of  any  of  the  emigrant  classes  above  outlined, 
with  the  News  Distributing  Bureau  against  it, 
with  no  political  or  social  standing — pariahs  in  the 
land — with  Northern  capital  endorsing  serfdom, 
with  their  inability  to  lose  their  race  identity,  on 
account  of  their  color — we  realize  how  heavy  the 
odds  were  against  the  Negro  race  at  that  time. 

"  As  a  Negro  orator  once  put  it,  '  De  Southern 
white  man's  on  top'er  de  nigger  and  de  Yankee 
white  man 's  on  top  er  de  Southern  white  man  and 
de  bad  nigger  's  on  top  er  dem  bofe ! ' 

"  I  now  come  to  some  of  the  proposed  solutions 
of  the  problem.  Various  meetings  were  held  all 
over  the  country  to  discuss  the  Negro  problem, 
and  many  a  mediocre  white  man  who  thirsted  for 
a  little  newspaper  notoriety,  or  political  prefer 
ment,  in  both  the  North  and  the  South,  had  his 


Now  and  Then  29 

appetite  in  this  direction  satisfied  by  writing  or 
saying  something  on  the  Negro  question.  One 
Thomas  Dixon  tried  to  out  Herod  Herod  in  taking 
up  the  exceptional  cases  of  Negro  criminality  and 
using  them  in  an  attempt  to  convince  his  readers 
of  the  Negro's  unfitness  for  citizenship.  A  public 
speaker  named  John  Temple  Graves  *  made  lecture 


*  The  following  were  the  views  of  Mr.  Noah  W.  Cooper,  a  Nash 
ville  lawyer,  on  one  of  Mr.  Graves'  addresses: 

"John  Temple  Graves'  address  in  Chicago  contains  more  errors 
and  inconsistencies  about  the  so-called  Negro  problem  than  any 
recent  utterance  on  the  subject. 

"  He  says  that  God  has  established  the  '  metes  and  bounds  '  of 
the  Negro's  habitation,  but  he  never  pointed  out  a  single  mete  nor 
a  single  bound  He  says,  '  Let  us  put  the  Negro  kindly  and  hu 
manely  out  of  the  way  ; '  but  his  vision  again  faded  and  he  never 
told  us  where  to  put  the  darkey. 

"  If  Mr.  Graves'  inspiration  had  not  been  as  short  as  a  clam's 
ear  and  he  had  gone  on  and  given  us  the  particular  spot  on  the 
globe  to  which  we  should  *  kindly  and  humanely  '  kick  the  darkey 
'out  of  the  way,'  then  we  might  have  asked,  who  will  take  the 
darkey's  place  in  the  South?  Who  will  plow  and  hoe  and  pick  out 
12,000,000  bales  of  cotton?  Who  will  sing  in  the  rice  fields?  Who 
will  raise  the  sugar  cane  ?  Who  will  make  our  'lasses  and  syrup  ? 
Who  will  box  and  dip  our  turpentine  ?  Who  will  cut  and  saw  the 
logs,  and  on  his  body  bear  away  the  planks  from  our  thousands 
of  sawmills  ?  Who  will  get  down  into  the  mud  and  swamps  and 
build  railroads  for  rich  contractors  ?  Who  will  work  out  their  lives 
in  our  phosphate  mines  and  factories,  and  in  iron  and  coal  mines? 
Who  will  be  roustabouts  on  our  rivers  and  on  our  wharves  to  be 
conscripted  when  too  hot  for  whites  to  work  ?  Who  will  fill  the 
darkey's  place  in  the  Southern  home  ? 


30  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

tours  advocating  deportation  as  the  only  solution 
of  the  problem,  rejecting  as  unsound  the  theories 
of  Booker  Washington,  who  was  advocating  in- 

"  Oh,  I  suppose  Mr.  Graves  would  say,  we  will  get  Dutch  and 
Poles,  and  Hungarians,  Swedes  or  other  foreigners  ;  or  we  will  our 
selves  do  all  the  work  of  the  Negro.  To  me  this  is  neither  possi 
ble  nor  desirable. 

"  The  South  don't  want  to  kick  the  Negro  out,  as  I  understand 
it.  The  separation  of  the  Negro  from  us  now — his  exile,  nolens 
volens — would  be  a  greater  calamity  to  us  than  his  emancipation  or 
his  enfranchisement  ever  has  been.  We  need  him  and  he  needs  us. 

"Mr.  Graves  says  that  God  never  did  intend  that  'opposite  and 
antagonistic  races  should  live  together.' 

"That  seems  to  me  to  be  as  wild  as  to  say  that  God  intended  all 
dogs  to  stay  on  one  island;  all  sheep  on  another;  all  lions  on  an 
other;  or  to  say  that  all  corn  should  grow  in  America  and  all  wheat 
in  Russia. 

"  Mr  Graves  cites  no  'thus  saith  the  Lord  '  to  back  up  his  new 
revelation  that  antagonistic  races  must  live  separated. 

"What  God  is  it  whose  mind  Mr.  Graves  is  thus  revealing? 
Surely  it  can't  be  the  God  of  the  Bible — for  He  allowed  the  Jews 
to  live  400  years  among  the  Egyptians;  then  over  500  years  in  and 
out  of  captivity  among  the  Canaanites;  then  in  captivity  nearly 
100  years  in  Babylon;  then  under  the  Romans;  then  sold  by  the 
Romans;  and  from  then  to  now  the  Jews — the  most  separate  and 
exclusive  of  peoples — God's  chosen  people  of  the  Old  Covenant — 
they  have  lived  anywhere,  among  all  people.  Surely  Mr  Graves  is 
not  revealing  the  mind  of  the  God  to  whom  the  original  thirteen 
colonies  bowed  down  in  prayer;  the  God  of  the  Declaration  of  In 
dependence  and  the  God  of  George  Washington  and  Thomas 
Jefferson.  For  how  many  different  races  were  planted  in  this  new 
world?  English,  Dutch,  Swedes,  Quakers,  Puritans,  Catholics, 
French  Huguenots,  the  poor,  the  rich — more  antagonism  than  you 
can  find  between  'Buckra'  and  the  'nigger.'  Yet  all  these  an- 


Now  and  Then  31 

dustrial  education  as  the  main  factor  in  solving 
the  problem,  because  of  the  consequent  clash  that 
would  arise  between  white  and  colored  mechanics 

tagonisms,  such  as  they  were,  did  not  prevent  our  forefathers  from 
uniting  in  one  country,  under  one  flag,  in  the  common  desire  for 
political  freedom,  moral  intelligence  and  individual  nobility  of 
character. 

"Under  Mr.  Graves'  God  every  colony  would  have  become  a 
petty  nation,  with  a  Chinese  wall  around  it.  Mr.  Graves'  incon 
sistencies  reached  a  climax  when  he  said  in  one  breath,  '  I  appeal 
for  the  imperial  destiny  of  our  mighty  race, '  and  then  in  the  next 
breath  says,  'let  us  put  the  Negro  out.'  Is  it  any  more  imperial 
to  boss  the  Filipino  abroad  than  it  is  to  boss  the  Negro  at  home? 

"The  God  of  the  Bible  commands  peace  among  races  and  na 
tions,  not  war;  friendship,  not  antagonism  and  hatred.  Did  not 
Paul,  a  Jew,  become  a  messenger  to  the  Gentiles?  Did  he  not 
write  the  greater  part  of  the  New  Testament  of  Christianity  while 
living  in  Gentile  and  pagan  Rome  ?  Did  not  Christ  set  example 
to  the  world  when  He,  a  Jew,  at  Jacob's  well,  preached  His  most 
beautiful  sermon  to  a  poor  Samaritan  woman  ?  Winding  up  that 
great  sermon  by  telling  the  woman  and  the  world  that  not  the  place 
of  his  abode  and  worship,  but  the  good  character  of  man — 'in 
spirit  and  in  truth  ' — was  the  only  true  worship.  And  that  is  the 
only  exclusive  place  whose  metes  and  bounds  God  has  set  for  any 
man  to  live,  'in  spirit  and  in  truth.' 

"How  idle  to  talk  of  shutting  off  each  race,  as  it  were,  into 
pens  like  pigs  to  fatten  them.  This  penning  process  will  neither 
fatten  their  bodies,  enlighten  their  minds  nor  ennoble  their  souls. 
Can  Mr.  Graves  tell  us  how  much  good  the  great  Chinese  wall  has 
done  for  man  ?  If  he  can,  he  can  tell  us  how  much  good  will 
come  to  us  by  putting  the  darkey  out,  and  locking  the  door.  Mr. 
Graves'  idea  would  reverse  all  the  maxims  of  Christianity.  It 
would  be  much  better  for  Mr.  Graves'  idea  of  the  separation  of 
antagonisms  to  be  applied  to  different  classes  of  occupations,  of 


32  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

— rejecting  also  as  unsound  the  theory  of  higher 
education ;  because  that  would  develop  in  the 
Negro  a  longing  for  equality  which  the  white  man 

persons  that  are  antagonistic.  For  instance,  the  dram-seller  is  an 
tagonistic  to  all  homes  and  boys  and  girls;  therefore,  put  all  dram- 
sellers  and  dram-shops  on  one  island,  and  all  the  homes  and  boys 
and  girls  on  another  island,  far,  far  away !  Now  there  is  your 
idea,  Mr.  Graves  !  Then,  again,  all  horse  thieves,  bank  breakers, 
train  robbers,  forgers,  counterfeiters  are  antagonistic  to  honest 
men;  so  here,  we  will  put  them  all  in  the  District  of  Columbia  and 
all  the  honest  men  in  Ohio,  and  build  a  high  wall  between.  All 
the  bad  boys  we  would  put  in  a  pen;  and  all  us  good  boys,  we  will  go 
to  the  park  and  have  a  picnic  and  laugh  at  the  nincompoop  bad  boys 
whose  destiny  we  have  penned  up!  Ah,  Mr.  Graves  could  no  more 
teach  us  this  error  than  could  he  reverse  the  decree  of  Christ  to  let 
the  wheat  and  tares  grow  together  until  harvest.  The  seclusion  or 
isolation  of  an  individual  or  a  race  is  not  the  road  that  God  has 
blazed  out  for  the  highest  attainments.  The  Levite  of  the  great 
parable  drew  his  robes  close  about  him  and  'passed  by  on  the 
other  side ' — like  Mr.  Graves  would  have  us  do  the  Negro,  except 
that  instead  of  passing  him  by  we  would  '  put  him  behind  us ' — a 
mere  difference  of  words.  But  the  good  Samaritan  got  down  and 
nursed  the  dirty,  wounded  bleeding  Jew;  sacrificed  his  time  and 
money  to  heal  his  wounds.  Now  that  Levite  must  be  Mr.  Graves' 
ideal  Southerner!  He  says  the  Negro  is  an  unwilling,  blameless, 
unwholesome,  unwelcome  element.  So  was  the  robbed  and  bleed 
ing  Jew  to  the  Levite;  but  did  that  excuse  the  Levite 's  wrong? 
Ought  the  Levite  to  have  put  the  groaning  man  '  out  of  the 
way '  of  his  '  imperial  destiny '  by  kicking  him  out  of  the  road  ? 

"  Nay,  verily.  By  the  time  that  Mr.  Graves  gets  all  of  the  an 
tagonistic  races  and  all  the  antagonistic  occupations  and  people  of 
the  world  cornered  off  and  fenced  up  in  their  God-prescribed  'metes 
and  bounds, '  and  fences  them  each  up,  with  stakes  and  riders  to 
hold  them  in — by  that  time  I  am  sure  he  will  envy  the  job  of  Sysi- 


Now  and  Then  33 

would  not  give  and  was  never  known  to  give  an 
inferior  race,  a  statement  which  all  honest  white 
people  must  regard  as  a  base  slander  upon  their 
Christianity. 

"  Bishop  Turner,  senior  bishop  of  the  African 
Methodist-Episcopal  Church,  one  of  the  leading 
organizations  of  the  Negro  race,  also  advocated 
emigration  to  Africa  as  the  only  solution  of  the 
problem,  on  the  grounds  that  the  white  people 
would  never  treat  the  Negro  justly  and  that  his 
tory  furnished  no  instance  where  a  slave  race  had 
ever  become  absolutely  free  in  the  land  of  its  for 
mer  owners,  instancing  that  to  be  free  the  Jews 
had  to  leave  Egypt ;  that  William  the  Conqueror 
and  his  followers  slaughtered  the  native  Britons, 
rather  than  attempt  to  carry  out  what  seemed  to 
them  an  impossible  task,  that  of  teaching  two 
races,  a  conquered  race  and  a  conquering  one,  to 
live  side  by  side  in  peace. 

"  One  Professor  Bassett  made  enemies  of  the 
Southern  newspapers  and  politicians  by  proposing 
justice  and  equality  as  a  solution  of  the  problem. 
The  '  most  unkindest  cut  of  all '  of  Professor  Bass- 
ett's  saying  was  that  Booker  Washington  was 

phus.     But  there  is  a  grain  of  sober  truth  in  one  thing  Mr.  Graves 
says— that  the  Negro  is  blameless." 
C 


34  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

'  the  greatest  man,  save  Robert  E.  Lee,  that  the 
South  had  produced  in  a  hundred  years.'  The 
politicians  and  their  sympathizers  seized  upon  this 
statement  as  being  a  good  opportunity  to  keep  up 
the  discussion  of  the  Negro  issue,  which  many 
better  disposed  people  were  hoping  would  be 
dropped,  according  to  promise,  as  soon  as  the 
Negroes  had  been  deprived  of  the  ballot  by  the 
amendments  then  being  added  to  the  constitutions 
of  the  Southern  States.  They  rolled  it  over  as  a 
sweet  morsel  under  their  tongues.  <  Othello's 
occupation/  they  realized,  would  be  gone  without 
the  '  nigger  in  the  wood  pile.'  The  politicians 
disfranchised  the  Negro  to  get  rid  of  his  vote, 
which  was  in  their  way,  and  they  kept  the  Negro 
scarecrow  bolstered  up  for  fear  that  the  whites 
might  divide  and  that  the  Negro  might  then  come 
back  into  possession  of  the  ballot. 

"  The  politicians  proposed  no  measures  of  relief 
for  the  great  mass  of  ignorance  and  poverty  in 
their  midst.  The  modicum  of  school  appropria 
tions  was  wrung  from  them,  in  some  instances,  by 
the  threats  of  the  better  element  of  the  people. 
They  were  obstructionists  rather  than  construc- 
tionists.  One  Benjamin  Tillman  boasted  on  the 
floor  of  the  United  States  Senate  that  in  his  state 


Now  and  Then  35 

he  kept  the  Negroes  '  in  their  place '  by  the  use 
of  the  shot-gun,  in  defiance  of  law  and  the  consti 
tution,  and  that  he  expected  to  keep  it  up.  If 
left  alone,  the  feeling  against  Negroes  would  have 
subsided  to  some  extent  and  mutual  helpfulness 
prevailed,  but  the  politicians  had  to  have  an  issue, 
even  at  the  sacrifice  of  peace  between  the  races 
and  at  the  expense  of  a  loss  of  labor  in  many  sec 
tions  where  it  was  once  plentiful — as  many  Negroes 
left  for  more  liberal  states,  where  they  not  only 
received  better  wages  but  also  better  treatment. 
The  Southern  farmer  and  business  man  was  pay 
ing  a  dear  price  for  office  holders  when  he  stood 
by  the  politicians  and  allowed  them  to  run  off 
Negro  labor,  by  disfranchisement  and  political  op 
pression.  It  was  paying  too  much  for  a  whistle  of 
that  quality. 

"  Many  Negroes  thought,  with  Bishop  Turner 
and  John  Temple  Graves,  that  emigration  was  the 
solution  of  the  problem ;  not  necessarily  emigra 
tion  from  the  United  States,  but  emigration  indi 
vidually  to  states  where  public  sentiment  had  not 
been  wrought  up  against  them.  But  the  Negro, 
owing  to  his  ignorance,  and  also  to  his  affection 
for  the  land  of  his  birth,  and  on  account  of  a  pe 
culiar  provincialism  that  narrowed  his  scope  of 


36  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

vision  of  the  world  and  its  opportunities,  could  not 
bring  himself  to  leave  the  South,  so  far  as  the 
great  mass  was  concerned.  Then,  too,  he  had 
been  told  that  the  Yankees  would  not  treat  him 
like  the  Southerner,  and  Southern  newspapers  took 
especial  pains  to  publish  full  details  of  all  the 
lynchings  that  occurred  in  the  North  and  make 
suggestive  comments  on  them,  in  which  they  en 
deavored  to  show  that  the  whole  country  was 
down  on  the  Negro,  and  that  while  in  the  South 
the  whites  lynched  only  the  one  Negro  against 
whom  they  had  become  enraged,  in  the  North 
they  mobbed  and  sought  to  drive  out  all  the  Ne 
groes  in  the  community  where  the  crime  had 
been  committed.  (The  two  clippings  below  oc 
curred  in  the  same  issue  of  a  Southern  paper  and 
showed  how,  while  the  North  was  mobbing  a  Ne 
gro,  the  South  was  honoring  one.)* 

*  NEGRO  TORN  FROM  JAIL  BY  AN  OHIO  MOB. 

SHOT  DEAD  ON  THE  GROUND,  THEN  HANGED  FROM  TELEGRAPH  POLE 
— TELLS  OF  LAUGHTER — FOR  HALF  AN  HOUR  THE  SWINGING 
CORPSE  SERVES  AS  A  TARGET  FOR  THE  MOB  WHICH  POURS  LEAD 
INTO  IT,  SHRIEKING  WITH  DELIGHT. 

(By  the  Associated  Press.} 

Springfield,  Ohio,  March  7,  1904. — Richard  Dixon,  a  Negro,  was 
shot  to  death  here  to-night  by  a  mob  for  the  killing  of  Policeman 
Charles  Collis,  who  died  to-day  from  wounds  received  at  the  hands 
of  Dixon  on  Sunday. 


Now  and  Then  37 

"  Instances  of  white  mechanics  North  who  were 
refusing  to  work  with  Negroes,  and  instances  of 
Northern  hotels  refusing  them  shelter  were  also 

Collis  had  gone  to  Dixon 's  room  on  the  Negro's  request.  Dixon 
said  his  mistress  had  his  clothes  in  her  possession.  Collis  accom 
panied  Dixon  to  the  room,  and  in  a  short  time  the  man  and  woman 
engaged  in  a  quarrel,  which  resulted  in  Dixon  shooting  the  woman, 
who  is  variously  known  as  Anna  or  Mamie  Corbin,  in  the  left  breast 
just  over  the  heart.  She  fell  unconscious  at  the  first  shot  and  Collis 
jumped  towards  the  Negro  to  prevent  his  escape  from  the  room. 
Dixon  then  fired  four  balls  into  Collis,  the  last  of  which  penetrated 
his  abdomen.  Dixon  went  immediately  to  police  headquarters  and 
gave  himself  up.  He  was  taken  to  jail. 

As  soon  as  Collis'  death  became  known  talk  of  lynching  the  Ne 
gro  was  heard  and  to-night  a  crowd  began  to  gather  about  the 
jail. 

The  mob  forced  an  entrance  to  the  jail  by  breaking  in  the  east 
doors  with  a  railroad  iron. 

At  10 :  30  the  mob  melted  rapidly  and  it  was  the  general  opinion 
that  no  more  attempts  would  be  made  to  force  an  entrance.  Small 
groups  of  men,  however,  could  be  seen  in  the  shadows  of  the  court 
house,  two  adjacent  livery  stables  and  several  dwelling  houses.  At 
10: 45  o'clock  the  police  were  satisfied  that  there  was  nothing  more 
to  fear  and  they  with  other  officials  and  newspaper  men  passed 
freely  in  and  out  of  the  jail. 

Shortly  before  11  o'clock  a  diversion  was  made  by  a  small  crowd 
moving  from  the  east  doors  around  to  the  south  entrance.  The 
police  followed  and  a  bluff  was  made  at  jostling  them  off  the  steps 
leading  up  to  the  south  entrance. 

The  crowd  at  this  point  kept  growing,  while  yells  of  "  hold  the 
police,"  "  smash  the  doors,"  "  lynch  the  nigger  "  were  made,  inter 
spersed  with  revolver  shots. 

All  this  time  the  party  with  the  heavy  railroad  iron  was  beating 
at  the  east  door,  which  shortly  yielded  to  the  battering  ram,  as  did 


38  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

made  the  most  of  and  served  the  purpose  of  deter 
ring  Negro  emigration  from  the  Southern  States. 
Frequently  some  Negro  was  brought  home  dead, 

the  inner  lattice  iron  doors.  The  mob  then  surged  through  the 
east  door,  overpowered  the  sheriff,  turnkey  and  handful  of  deputies 
and  began  the  assault  on  the  iron  turnstile  leading  to  the  cells.  The 
police  from  the  south  door  were  called  inside  to  keep  the  mob  from 
the  cells  and  in  five  minutes  the  south  door  had  shared  the  fate  of 
the  east  one. 

In  an  incredibly  short  time  the  jail  was  filled  with  a  mob  of  250 
men  with  all  the  entrances  and  yard  gates  blocked  by  fully  2,500 
men,  thus  making  it  impossible  for  the  militia  to  have  prevented 
access  to  the  Negro,  had  it  been  on  the  scene. 

The  heavy  iron  partition  leading  to  the  cells  resisted  the  mob  ef 
fectually  until  cold  chisels  and  sledge  hammers  arrived,  which  were 
only  two  or  three  minutes  late  in  arriving.  The  padlock  to  the 
turnstile  was  broken  and  the  mob  soon  filled  the  corridors  leading 
to  the  cells. 

Seeing  that  further  resistance  was  useless  and  to  avoid  the  killing 
of  innocent  prisoners  the  authorities  consented  to  the  demand  of 
the  mob  for  the  right  man.  He  was  dragged  from  his  cell  to  the 
jail  door  and  thence  down  the  stone  steps  to  a  court  in  the  jail  yard. 

Fearing  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  police  to  rescue  him,  the 
leaders  formed  a  hollow  square.  Some  one  knocked  the  Negro  to 
the  ground  and  those  near  to  him  fell  back  four  or  five  feet.  Nine 
shots  were  fired  into  his  prostrate  body,  and  satisfied  that  he  was 
dead,  a  dozen  men  grabbed  the  lifeless  body,  and  with  a  triumphant 
cheer  the  mob  surged  into  Columbia  street  and  marched  to  Foun 
tain  Avenue,  one  of  the  principal  streets  of  the  town.  From  here 
they  marched  south  to  the  intersection  of  Main  street,  and  a  rope 
was  tied  around  Dixon's  neck.  Two  men  climbed  the  pole  and 
threw  the  rope  over  the  topmost  crosstie  and  drew  the  body  about 
eighteen  feet  above  the  street.  They  then  descended  and  their 
work  was  greeted  with  a  cheer. 


Now  and  Then  39 

or  one  who  had  contracted  disease  in  the  North 
came  home  and  died.  These  occurrences  were 
also  used  as  object  lessons  and  had  their  effect. 

"  In  fact,  the  Southern  white  people  did  not  want 
the  Negroes  to  leave.  They  wanted  them  as 
domestics,  on  the  farm,  and  as  mechanics.  They 
knew  their  value  as  such.  '  Be  as  intelligent,  as 
capable  as  you  may  but  acknowledge  my  superior 
ity,'  was  the  unspoken  command. 

"  Many  individual  Negroes  acted  on  this  sugges 
tion  and  by  shrewd  foresight  managed  to  accumu- 

The  fusillade  then  began  and  for  thirty  minutes  the  body  was 
kept  swaying  back  and  forth,  from  the  force  of  the  rain  of  bullets 
which  was  poured  into  it.  Frequently  the  arms  would  fly  up  con 
vulsively  when  a  muscle  was  struck,  and  the  mob  went  fairly  wild 
with  delight.  Throughout  it  all  perfect  order  was  maintained  and 
everyone  seemed  in  the  best  of  humor,  joking  with  his  nearest 
neighbor  while  re-loading  his  revolver. 

A  NEGRO  HONORED. 

COLUMBUS,  GEORGIA,  ERECTS  A  MONUMENT  TO  A  HEROIC  LABORER. 

(By  the  Associated  Press.) 

Macon,  Ga.,  March  9,  1902. — A  Columbus,  Ga.,  dispatch  to  the 
Telegraph  says  a  marble  monument  has  been  erected  by  the  city  to 
the  memory  of  Bragg  Smith,  the  Negro  laborer  who  lost  his  life  last 
September  in  a  heroic  but  fruitless  effort  to  rescue  City  Engineer 
Robert  L.  Johnson  from  a  street  excavation.  On  one  side  is  an 
inscription  setting  forth  the  fact,  while  on  the  other  side  is  chiseled, 

"  Honor  and  shame  from  no  condition  rise; 
Act  well  thy  part,  there  all  the  honor  lies." 


40  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

late  considerable  property,  and  so  long  as  they 
6  minded  their  own  business/  and  '  stayed  out  of 
polities'  they  did  well,  and  had  strong  personal 
friends  among  the  white  people.  Their  property 
rights  were  recognized  to  a  very  large  extent,  in 
fact  the  right  of  Negroes  to  hold  property  was 
very  generally  conceded.  This  was  true  even  to 
the  extent,  in  several  instances,  of  causing  reim 
bursement  for  those  who  were  run  away  from  their 
homes  by  mobs.  In  some  states  laws  were  passed 
giving  damages  to  the  widows  of  those  who  were 
lynched  by  mobs,  said  damages  to  be  paid  by  the 
county  in  which  the  lynching  occurred.  In  fact 
the  South  had  long  since  discovered  the  Negro's 
usefulness  and  the  feeling  against  him  partook 
more  of  political  persecution  than  race  hatred. 
The  paradoxical  scheme  of  retaining  six  million 
Negroes  in  the  population  with  all  the  rights  and 
duties  of  citizenship,  less  social  and  political  stand 
ing,  was  the  onus  of  the  problem  in  the  South. 
Such  a  scheme  as  this  was  bound  to  breed  more  or 
less  persecution  and  lawlessness,  as  did  the  slave 
system.  It  was  a  makeshift  at  best,  and  though 
in  the  main,  honestly  undertaken,  it  was  impossible 
of  performance. 

"  The  Southern  people  seemed  to  have  no  objec- 


Now  and  Then  41 

tion  to  personal  contact  with  Negroes  in  a  servile 
capacity.  Many  Negro  women  made  their  liv 
ing  as  '  wet  nurses/  and  the  Southern  '  black 
mammy'  had  become  stereotyped.  Then,  too, 
the  large  number  of  mulatto  children  everywhere 
was  some  evidence  of  personal  contact,  on  the 
part  of  the  men.  Negro  servants  swarmed  around 
the  well-to-do  Southern  home,  cooked  the  food 
and  often  slept  with  the  children ;  the  South 
erner  shook  hands  with  his  servants  on  his  return 
home  from  a  visit  and  was  glad  to  see  them ;  but 
if  any  of  these  servants  managed  by  industry  and 
tact  to  rise  to  higher  walks  of  life,  it  became  nec 
essary,  according  to  the  unwritten  law,  to  break 
off  close  relations.  Yet,  in  the  great  majority  of 
cases,  the  interest  and  good  feeling  remained,  if 
the  Negro  did  not  become  too  active  politically — 
in  which  case  he  could  expect  (  no  quarter.' 

"  The  subject  of  lynching  became  very  serious. 
This  evil  custom,  for  a  while,  seemed  to  threaten 
the  whole  nation.  While  Negroes  were  the  most 
common  victims,  yet  the  fever  spread  like  a  con 
tagion  to  the  lynching  of  white  criminals  as  well. 

"  At  first  it  was  confined  to  criminals  who  com 
mitted  assaults  on  women,  and  to  brutal  murderers, 
but  it  soon  became  customary  to  lynch  for  the 


42  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

slightest  offense,  so  that  no  man's  life  was  safe  if 
he  was  unfortunate  enough  to  have  had  a  difficulty 
with  some  individual,  who  had  friends  enough  to 
raise  a  mob  at  night  who  would  go  with  him  to 
the  house  of  his  victim,  call  him  out,  and  either 
shoot,  or  unmercifully  beat  him.  The  refusal  of 
the  officers  of  the  law  to  crush  out  this  spirit  in 
its  embryonic  stage  resulted  in  its  growing  to  such 
enormous  proportions  that  they  found,  too  late,  that 
they  could  neither  manage  nor  control  it.  The 
officers  themselves  were  afraid  of  the  lynchers. 

"  The  method  of  lynching  Negroes  was  usually 
by  hanging  or  by  burning  at  the  stake,  sometimes 
in  the  presence  of  thousands  of  people,  who  came 
in  on  excursion  trains  to  see  the  sight,  and,  pos 
sibly,  carry  off  a  trophy  consisting  of  a  finger  joint, 
a  tooth  or  a  portion  of  the  victim's  heart.  If  the 
lynching  was  for  a  crime  committed  against  a 
woman,  and  she  could  be  secured,  she  was  con 
signed  to  the  task  of  starting  the  flames  with  her 
own  hands.  -  This  was  supposed  to  add  to  the  nov 
elty  of  the  occasion.* 

*  BURNING    OF   NEGROES. 

Birmingham,  Ala.,  Special — The  Age- Herald  recently  published 
the  following  letter  from  Booker  T.  Washington: 

"  Within  the  last  fortnight  three  members  of  my  race  have  been 


Now  and  Then  43 

" '  Why  did  not  the  Negro  offer  some  resistance 
to  these  outrages  ? '  you  may  ask. 

"  That  question,  no  doubt,  is  often  propounded 
by  those  who  read  of  the  horrors  of  this  particular 
period.  Different  theories  are  advanced.  One  is 
that  the  Negro  was  overawed  by  numbers  and  re 
sources — that  he  saw  the  uselessness  of  any  such 
attempt.  Another  theory  is  that  during  the  whole 
history  of  Negro  slavery  in  this  country  there  oc 
curred  only  one  or  two  rebellions  worthy  of  the 

burned  at  the  stake;  of  these  one  was  a  woman.  Not  one  of  the 
three  was  charged  with  any  crime  even  remotely  connected  with 
the  abuse  of  a  white  woman.  In  every  case  murder  was  the  sole 
accusation.  All  of  these  burnings  took  place  in  broad  daylight,  and 
two  of  them  occurred  on  Sunday  afternoon  in  sight  of  a  Christian 
church. 

"  In  the  midst  of  the  nation's  prosperous  life,  few,  I  fear,  take 
time  to  consider  whither  these  brutal  and  inhuman  practices  are 
leading  us.  The  custom  of  burning  human  beings  has  become  so 
common  as  scarcely  to  attract  interest  or  unusual  attention.  I 
have  always  been  among  those  who  condemned  in  the  strongest 
terms  crimes  of  whatever  character  committed  by  members  of  my 
race,  and  I  condemn  them  now  with  equal  severity,  but  I  main 
tain  that  the  only  protection  to  our  civilization  is  a  fair  and  calm 
trial  of  all  people  charged  with  crime,  and  in  their  legal  punish 
ment,  if  proved  guilty.  There  is  no  excuse  to  depart  from  legal 
methods.  The  laws  are,  as  a  rule,  made  by  the  white  people,  and 
their  execution  is  by  the  hands  of  the  white  people  so  that  there  is 
little  probability  of  any  guilty  colored  man  escaping.  These  burn 
ings  without  trial  are  in  the  deepest  sense  unjust  to  my  race,  but 
it  is  not  this  injustice  alone  which  stirs  my  heart.  These  barbar- 


44  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

name.  One  was  the  '  Nat  Turner  Insurrection  '  in 
Southampton  County,  Virginia,  in  1831.  This 
was  soon  put  down  and  the  ringleader  hung,  to 
gether  with  several  of  his  misguided  followers. 
So  it  must  be  concluded,  since  the  Negro  bore  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years  of  slavery  so  patiently, 
and  made  only  a  few  feeble  attempts  to  liberate 
himself,  that  he  is  not  naturally  of  a  rebellious 
nature — that  he  easily  fits  into  any  place  you  put 
him,  and  with  the  fatalistic  tendency  of  all  bar- 

ous  scenes,  followed  as  they  are  by  the  publication  of  the  shocking 
details,  are  more  disgraceful  and  degrading  to  the  people  who  in 
fluence  the  punishment  than  to  those  who  receive  it. 

"  If  the  law  is  disregarded  when  a  negro  is  concerned,  will  it  not 
soon  also  be  disregarded  in  the  case  of  the  white  man?  And  besides 
the  rule  of  the  mob  destroys  the  friendly  relations  which  should 
exist  between  the  races  and  injures  and  interferes  with  the  mate 
rial  prosperity  of  the  communities  concerned. 

"  Worst  of  all,  these  outrages  take  place  in  communities  where 
there  are  Christian  churches;  in  the  midst  of  people  who  have  their 
Sunday  schools,  their  Christian  Endeavor  Societies  and  Young 
Men's  Christian  Associations;  collections  are  taken  up  to  send  mis 
sionaries  to  Africa  and  China  and  the  rest  of  the  so-called  heathen 
world. 

"  Is  it  not  possible  for  pulpit  and  press  to  speak  out  against 
these  burnings  in  a  manner  that  will  arouse  a  sentiment  that  shall 
compel  the  mob  to  cease  insulting  our  courts,  our  governors  and 
our  legal  authority,  to  cease  bringing  shame  and  ridicule  upon  our 
Christian  civilization. 

"  BOOKER  T.  WASHINGTON. 

"Tuskegee,  Ala." 


Now  and  Then  45 

baric  races,  except  the  Indian,  makes  the  best  of 
circumstances.  It  is  possibly  true  that  the  Negro 
would  be  a  slave  among  us  to-day  if  some  one  else 
had  not  freed  him.  The  sentiment,  'He  who 
would  be  free  must  first  himself  strike  the  blow/ 
did  not  appeal  to  him. 

"  Another  reason  cited  for  the  Negro's  submis 
sion  so  long  to  oppression  both  before  and  since  the 
American  Civil  War  of  1860  to  1865  was  his  inabil 
ity  to  organize.  The  white  man  learned  this  art  by 
thousands  of  years  of  experience  and  of  necessary 
resistance  for  the  protection  of  those  rights  which 
he  holds  most  dear.  The  Negroes  were  never  able 
to  make  any  concerted  movement  in  their  own  be 
half.  They  clashed  too  easily  with  one  another 
and  any  individual  would  swamp  the  ship,  as  it 
were,  to  further  his  own  scheme.  The  '  rule  or 
ruin'  policy  prevailed  and  the  necessity  of  the 
subordination  of  individuality  for  the  good  of  the 
whole  was  lost  in  a  storm  of  personal  aggrandize 
ment  whenever  an  attempt  was  made  at  anything 
bordering  on  Negro  national  organization.  This 
was  one  of  the  fruits  of  slavery,  which  encouraged 
jealousy  and  bickering.  Several  religious  organi 
zations  had  a  successful  existence  for  some  time 
and  quite  a  number  of  business  and  benevolent 


46  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

enterprises,  but  in  politics  all  was  chaos.  The 
Negroes  cast  their  ballots  one  way  all  of  the  time ; 
it  was  known  just  as  well  ten  years  before  an  elec 
tion  how  they  would  vote,  as  it  was  after  the  bal 
lots  were  counted.  No  people  of  political  calibre 
like  that  could  measure  arms  with  the  white  man 
politically  ;  his  rebelling  in  such  a  condition  would 
have  been  preposterous.  The  Negro  took  his  cue 
in  matters  of  race  policy  from  his  white  friends — 
he  did  not  fight  until  the  signal  was  given  by  them. 
No  Negro  gained  any  national  reputation  without 
first  having  been  recognized  by  the  white  race, 
instead  of  his  own.  The  Negroes  recognized  their 
leaders  after  the  whites  picked  them  out — not  be 
fore. 

"  The  Negro  nature  at  this  time  was  still  a  pliable 
one,  after  many  years  of  drill  training,  but  it  was 
much  more  plastic  in  the  days  of  slavery,  and  for  the 
first  forty  years  after  reconstruction.  The  master 
labored  to  subordinate  the  will  of  the  slave  to  his 
own,  to  make  him  like  clay  in  the  hands  of  the 
potter.  In  this  he  had  an  eye  to  business.  The 
nearer  the  slave  approached  the  horse,  in  follow 
ing  his  master's  guidance,  the  nearer  perfect  he 
was,  and  this  lesson  of  putting  himself  absolutely 
at  the  mercy  of  his  master  was  thoroughly  learned, 


Now  and  Then  47 

and  it  was  learned  easily  because  there  seemed  to 
exist  a  natural  instinctive  awe  on  the  part  of  the 
Negro  for  the  white  man.  He  had  that  peculiar 
fondness  for  him  that  the  mule  has  for  the  horse. 
You  can  mount  one  horse  and  lead  a  thousand 
mules,  without  bit  or  bridle,  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth. 

"  The  Negro  sought  to  please  his  master  in  all 
things.  He  had  a  smile  for  his  frowns  and  a  grin 
for  his  kicks.  No  task  was  too  menial,  if  done 
for  a  white  master — he  would  dance  if  he  was 
called  upon  and  make  sport  of  the  other  Negroes, 
and  even  pray,  if  need  be,  so  he  could  laugh  at 
him.  He  was  trustworthy  to  the  letter,  and  while 
occasionally  he  might  help  himself  to  his  master's 
property  on  the  theory  of  a  common  ownership, 
yet  woe  be  unto  the  other  Negro  that  he  caught 
tampering  with  his  master's  goods !  He  was  a 
( tattler '  to  perfection,  a  born  dissembler — a  dip 
lomat  and  a  philosopher  combined.  He  was  past 
grand  master  in  the  art  of  carrying  his  point  when 
he  wanted  a  '  quarter '  or  fifty  cents.  He 
knew  the  route  to  his  master's  heart  and  pocket- 
book  and  traveled  it  often.  He  simply  made  him 
self  so  obliging  that  he  could  not  be  refused !  It 
was  this  characteristic  that  won  him  favor  in  the 


48  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

country  from  college  president  down  to  the  lowest 
scullion.  Had  he  been  resentful  and  vindictive, 
like  the  Indian,  he  would  have  been  deported  or 
exterminated  long  since. 

"  The  Negro's  usefulness  had  also  bound  him  to 
the  South.  The  affection  that  the  master  and 
mistress  had  for  the  slave  was  transmitted  in  the 
blood  of  their  children. 

"  As  unto  the  bow  the  cord  is, 
So  unto  the  man  is  woman, 
Though  she  bends  him,  she  obeys  him, 
Though  she  draws  him,  yet  she  follows ; 
Useless  each  without  the  other," 

applied  to  the  relations  between  the  Negro  and 
his  white  master.  In  the  Civil  War  between  the 
states,  many  a  slave  followed  his  master  to  the 
front.  Here  he  was  often  the  only  messenger  to 
return  home.  He  bore  the  treasured  watch,  or 
ring,  or  sword,  of  the  fallen  soldier,  and  broke  the 
sad  news  to  the  family ;  and  there  were  black  tears 
as  well  as  white  ones  spilled  on  such  occasions. 

"  The  white  males  went  to  the  war  leaving  the 
family  and  farm  in  charge  of  the  blacks  thereon. 
They  managed  everything,  plowed,  sowed,  reaped, 
and  sold,  and  turned  over  all  returns  to  the  mis 
tress.  They  shared  her  sorrows  and  were  her  pro- 


Now  and  Then  49 

tection.  When  Union  soldiers  came  near,  the 
trusted  blacks  were  diligent  in  hiding  property 
from  the  thieves  and  bummers  of  the  army.  They 
carried  the  horses  to  the  woods  and  hid  them  in 
the  densest  swamps,  they  buried  the  jewelry  and 
silver  and  gold  plate  ;  they  secreted  their  young 
mistresses  and  the  members  of  the  family  where 
they  could  not  be  found,  and  not  one  instance  was 
there  ever  heard  of  improper  conduct,  out  of  a 
population  of  nearly  four  million  slaves ;  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  the  war  was  being  maintained  by 
their  masters  for  the  perpetuation  of  the  shackles 
of  slavery  on  themselves  !  The  Negro  was  too 
fond  of  his  master's  family  to  mistreat  them,  he 
felt  almost  a  kinship  to  them.  The  brutes  of  later 
days  came  from  that  class  of  Negroes  who  had 
been  isolated  from  the  whites,  on  the  quarters  of 
large  plantations. 

"  Was  there  ever  a  more  glorious  record  ?  Did 
ever  a  race  deserve  more  fully  the  affection  of 
another  race  than  these  southern  Negroes,  and  did 
not  we  owe  it  to  their  descendants  to  save  them 
from  both  deportation  and  serfdom  ? 

"  You  ask,  '  Why  was  it  that  after  the  war  there 
was  so  much  race  prejudice,  in  the  face  of  all  these 
facts  ? ' 


50  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

"  The  answer  to  that  question  is  fraught  with 
much  weight  and  bears  strongly  on  the  final  solu 
tion  of  the  Negro  problem.  The  friends  of  the 
Negro  had  this  question  to  battle  with  from  the 
beginning,  for  the  enemies  of  the  race  used  every 
weapon  at  hand  in  the  long  and  terrible  fight 
against  Negro  citizenship. 

"  To  begin  with,  I  will  state  that  after  the  war 
the  Negro  became  a  free  citizen  and  a  voter — he 
was  under  no  restraint.  His  new  condition  gave 
him  privileges  that  he  had  never  had  before ;  it 
was  not  unnatural  that  he  should  desire  to  exer 
cise  them.  His  attempts  to  do  so  were  resisted 
by  the  native  whites,  but  his  vote  was  needed  by 
the  white  men  who  had  recently  come  into  the  South 
to  make  it  their  home — and  to  get  office — and  also 
for  his  own  protection.  It  was  necessary  that 
he  should  vote  to  save  himself  from  many  of  the 
harsh  laws  that  were  being  proposed  at  the  time. 
Some  of  them  were  that  a  Negro  should  not  own 
land,  that  a  Negro's  testimony  was  incompetent  in 
the  courts,  that  a  Negro  should  not  keep  firearms 
for  his  defense,  that  he  should  not  engage  in  busi 
ness  without  paying  a  high  and  almost  prohibitive 
tax,  that  he  must  hire  himself  out  on  a  farm  in 
January  or  be  sold  to  the  highest  bidder  for  a 


Now  and  Then  51 

year,  the  former  owner  to  have  the  preference  in 
bidding. 

"  These  laws  were  unwisely  urged  by  those 
whites  who  did  not  desire  to  accept  the  conse 
quences  of  the  war.  To  make  the  laws  effective, 
it  was  thought  necessary  by  their  advocates  to 
suppress  the  Negro  voters ;  for,  if  they  were  al 
lowed  to  vote,  there  were  so  many  of  them,  and 
so  many  of  the  whites  had  been  disfranchised  be 
cause  of  participation  in  the  war,  that  defeat  was 
certain.  Here  is  where  the  bitterness,  which  for 
a  long  time  seemed  to  curse  our  country,  had  its 
origin.  The  Negroes  and  their  friends  were  lined 
up  on  one  side  and  their  opponents  on  the  other. 

"  The  <  Ku  Klux  Klan '  was  a  secret  organization 
whose  purpose  was  to  frighten  and  intimidate 
Negroes  and  thus  prevent  their  voting.  It  had 
branch  organizations  in  the  different  Southern 
states  during  the  reconstruction  period.  When 
the  members  went  out  on  raids,  they  wore  dis 
guises  ;  some  had  false  heads  with  horns  and  long 
beards,  some  represented  his  satanic  majesty,  some 
wore  long  gowns,  others  wrapped  themselves  in 
sheets  of  different  colors,  and  all  sorts  of  hideous 
shapes  and  forms,  with  masks  representing  the 
heads  of  different  animals,  such  as  goats,  cows 


52  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

and  mules.  They  proceeded  on  the  principle  of 
using  mild  means  first,  but  when  that  failed,  they 
did  not  hesitate  to  resort  to  harsher  methods.  The 
object  seemed  to  be  only  to  so  frighten  Negroes 
that  they  would  not  attempt  to  vote.  But  in  car 
rying  out  this  scheme  they  often  met  resistance, 
whereupon  many  outrages  were  perpetrated  upon 
people  who  made  a  stand  for  their  rights  under 
the  law  of  the  land.  In  obstinate  cases  and  toward 
the  end  of  their  careers  "  klans  "  would  visit  Ne 
gro  cabins  at  night  and  terrify  the  inmates  by 
whipping  them,  hanging  them  up  by  their  thumbs, 
and  sometimes  killing  them.  Many  Negroes  who 
assumed  to  lead  among  their  people  were  run  from 
one  county  into  another.  Some  were  run  out  of 
their  states,  and  even  white  men  who  led  the  Ne 
groes  in  thickly  settled  Negro  counties  were  driven 
out. 

"  The  story  was  told  of  one  case  where  a  white 
man  named  Stephens,  the  recognized  political 
leader  of  the  Negroes  as  well  as  a  few  whites,  in 
one  of  the  states,  was  invited  into  one  of  the  lower 
rooms  of  the  courthouse  of  his  county  while  a  po 
litical  meeting  by  his  opponents  was  in  progress 
above,  and  there  told  he  must  agree  to  leave  the 
county  and  quit  politics  or  be  killed  then  and  there. 


Now  and  Then  53 

He  refused  to  do  either,  whereupon  two  physicians, 
with  others  who  were  present,  tied  him,  laid  him 
on  a  table  and  opened  his  jugular  veins  and  bled 
him  to  death  in  buckets  provided  for  the  occasion. 
Meanwhile  the  stamping  of  feet  and  the  yelling 
above,  where  the  speaking  was  going  on,  was  tre 
mendous,  being  prearranged  to  deaden  any  outcry 
that  he  might  make.  It  is  said  that  Stephens' s  last 
words  before  he  was  put  on  the  table  were  a  re 
quest  that  he  might  go  to  the  window  and  take  a 
final  look  at  his  home,  which  was  only  a  few  rods 
away.  This  was  granted,  and  as  he  looked  his 
wife  passed  out  of  the  house  and  his  children 
were  playing  in  the  yard.  Stephens' s  dead  body 
was  found  by  a  Negro  man  who  suspected  some 
thing  wrong  and  climbed  to  the  window  of  the 
room  in  search  for  him. 

"  Such  acts  as  these  spread  terror  among  the 
Negro  population,  as  well  as  bad  feeling,  and  dug 
a  wide  political  pit  between  the  Negro  and  the 
Democratic  party  which  organized  these  methods 
of  intimidation.*  The  '  Ku  Klux  Klan '  was 
finally  annihilated  by  the  strong  hand  of  President 
Grant,  who  filled  the  South  with  sufficient  militia 
to  suppress  it.  A  favorite  means  of  evading  the 

*Tourgee  relates  this  incident  in  "A  Fool's  Errand." 


54  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

arrests  made  by  the  militia  was  to  have  the  pris 
oners  released  on  habeas  corpus  by  the  native 
judges.  To  stop  this  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus 
was  suspended  by  some  of  the  provisional  gov- 
erners.  One  governor  who  did  this  was  impeached 
by  the  Democratic  party  when  it  returned  to  power 
and  he  died  broken  hearted,  without  the  removal 
of  his  disabilities.  You  can  easily  see  from  these 
facts  how  the  political  differences  between  the 
Negro  and  the  Democratic  party  arose." 

Here  my  paper  ended.  When  I  had  read  it 
over  to  Dr.  Newell,  he  rose  and  went  over  to  his 
desk,  saying, 

"  While  looking  over  some  old  papers  belong 
ing  to  my  grandfather,  I  found  the  following  arti 
cle  inside  of  an  old  book.  On  it  is  a  statement 
that  it  was  written  in  the  year  1902  and  republished 
in  1950.  I  have  often  desired  to  get  at  the  true 
status  of  this  question,  and  when  I  found  this 
my  interest  was  doubly  aroused.  The  so-called 
Negro  problem  was  truly  a  most  crucial  test  of 
the  foundation  principles  of  our  government  a 
century  ago,  and  I  feel  proud  of  my  citizenship 
in  so  great  a  country  when  I  reflect  that  we  have 
come  through  it  all  with  honor  and  that  finally 
truth  has  won  out  and  we  are  able  at  last  to  treat 


Now  and  Then  55 

the  Negro  with  justice  and  humanity,  according  to 
the  principles  of  Christianity !  This  problem  tested 
our  faith  as  with  fire." 

He  handed  me  the  article,  and  gave  his  attention 
to  other  matters  until  I  had  read  it : — 

«  RECONSTRUCTION  AND  NEGRO  GOVERN 
MENT. 

"  In  the  ten  years  culminating  with  the  decade 
ending  in  1902,  the  American  Negroes  have  wit 
nessed  well  nigh  their  every  civil  right  invaded. 
They  commenced  the  struggle  as  freemen  in  1865  ; 
at  the  close  of  the  civil  war  both  races  in  the 
South  began  life  anew,  under  changed  conditions — 
neither  one  the  slave  of  the  other,  except  in  so 
far  as  he  who  toils,  as  Carlyle  says,  is  slave  to  him 
who  thinks.  Under  the  slave  system  the  white 
man  had  been  the  thinker  and  the  Negro  the  toiler. 
The  idea  that  governed  both  master  and  slave 
was  that  the  slave  should  have  no  will  but  that  of 
his  master. 

"  The  fruits  of  this  system  began  to  ripen  in  the 
first  years  of  freedom,  when  the  Negro  was  forced 
to  think  for  himself.  For  two  hundred  and  forty 
years  his  education  and  training  had  been  directed 


56  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

towards  the  suppression  of  his  will.  He  was  fast 
becoming  an  automaton.  He  was  taught  religion 
to  some  extent,  but  a  thoughtless  religion  is  little 
better  than  mockery  and  this  it  must  have  been 
when  even  to  read  the  Bible  in  some  states  was  a 
crime.  It  is,  therefore,  not  suprising  that  free 
dom's  new  suit  fitted  the  recently  emancipated 
slave  uncomfortably  close ;  he  hardly  knew  which 
way  to  turn  for  fear  he  would  rend  a  seam. 
Consultation  with  his  former  owners  was  his 
natural  recourse  in  adjusting  himself  to  new 
conditions. 

"In  North  Carolina  a  meeting  was  called  at  the 
capital  of  the  state  by  the  leading  colored  men,  and 
their  former  masters,  and  the  leading  white  men 
were  invited  to  come  forward,  to  take  the  lead  and 
to  tell  them  what  was  best  for  them  to  do.  It  is  a 
lamentable  fact  that  the  thinking  white  men  did  not 
embrace  this  opportunity  to  save  their  state  hun 
dreds  of  lives  that  were  afterwards  sacrificed  dur 
ing  reconstruction.  Many  other  evils  of  the 
period,  might  have  been  thus  averted.  It  was  a 
fatal  blunder  that  cost  much  in  money  and  blood, 
and,  so  far  as  North  Carolina  is  concerned,  if 
the  Negroes  in  reconstruction  were  misled  it  was 
the  fault  of  those  who  were  invited  and  refused 


Now  and  Then  57 

this  opportunity  to  take  hold  and  direct  them 
properly. 

"  The  Negro,  turned  from  the  Southern  white 
man's  refusal,  followed  such  leaders  as  he  could 
find.  In  some  instances  these  proved  to  be  corrupt 
camp  followers,  in  others  ambitious  and  unscrupu 
lous  Southern  men  who  made  the  Negroes  step 
ping  stones  to  power  or  pelf.  The  Negroes  of  the 
state  received  very  little  of  the  honor  or  harvest 
of  reconstruction,  but  very  much  of  dishonor,  and 
they  are  now  charged  with  the  sins  both  of  omis 
sion  and  commission  of  that  period.  A  pliant  tool 
he  may  have  been  in  the  hands  of  demagogues, 
yet  in  the  beginning  he  sought  the  leadership  of 
wise  men.  In  this  he  showed  a  noble  purpose 
which  at  least  relieves  him — whatever  was  charged 
to  his  account  afterwards — of  the  charge  of  mali 
cious  intent. 

"  Here  is  a  list  of  prominent  white  leaders  in 
North  Carolina  who  controlled  the  ship  of  state 
for  the  first  ten  years  after  the  war,  from  1869  to 
1876: 

"  Wm.  E.  Rodman  (Southern  white),  Judge  Dick 
(Southern  white),  W.  "W.  Holden,  Governor 
(Southern  white),  Byron  Laflin  (Southern  white), 
Henry  Martindale  (Ohio  white),  Gen'l  Ames 


58  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

(Northern),  G.  Z.  French,  legislator  (Maine),  Dr. 
Eugene  Grissom,  Superintendent  Insane  Asylum 
Kaleigh,  North  Carolina  (Southern  white),  Tyre 
York,  legislator  and  party  leader  (Southern  white), 
Governor  Graham  (Southern  white),  Judge  Brooks 
(Southern  white),  S.  J.  Carrow  (Southern  white). 

"  This  list  shows  that  those  who  had  the  reins  of 
government  in  hand  were  not  Negroes.  The  truth 
is,  that  if  the  team  went  wrong  the  fault  was  that 
of  the  white  drivers  and  not  that  of  the  Negro 
passengers  who,  to  say  the  most,  had  only  a  back 
seat  in  the  wagon  of  state. 

"  But  the  enemies  of  Negro  suffrage  and  advo 
cates  of  the  mistakes  of  reconstruction  avow  that 
the  sway  of  reconstruction  demagogery  could  never 
have  prevailed  but  for  Negro  suffrage ;  that  had 
the  Negro  not  been  a  voter  he  could  never  have 
been  made  the  tool  of  demagogues.  This  is  ob 
vious  but  the  argument  is  sufficiently  met  by  the 
fact  that  the  Negroes  offered  the  brain  and  cul 
ture  of  the  South  the  opportunity  of  taking  charge 
of  affairs.  Instead  of  doing  so  they  stiffened  their 
necks  against  Negro  suffrage,  the  Howard  Amend 
ment,  and  the  other  propositions  of  the  government 
at  Washington,  looking  towards  the  reconstruction 
of  the  lately  seceded  states.  If  there  had  been  less 


Now  and  Then  59 

resistance  there  would  have  been  less  friction,  but 
the  South  had  its  own  ideas  of  how  the  thing 
should  be  done  and  resisted  any  others  to  the  point 
of  a  revolution  which  had  to  be  put  down  by 
government  troops.  The  government's  plans 
were  carried  finally  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet, 
when  they  might  have  gone  through  smoothly, 
had  the  Negro's  call  for  Southern  leadership  been 
heeded.  Had  this  been  done,  the  <Ku-Klux' 
would  never  have  developed.  The  South  came 
back  into  the  Union,  '  overpowered/  it  said, 
'  but  not  conquered.'  So  far  as  the  Negro  ques 
tion  is  concerned  that  is  true  but  in  other  matters 
the  South  is  essentially  loyal.  Although  it  came 
back  pledged  never  to  deprive  any  citizen  of  his 
rights  and  privileges  '  on  account  of  color  or  pre 
vious  condition  of  servitude,'  it  is  now  engaged  in 
a  bold  and  boasting  attempt  to  do  this  very  thing. 
Louisiana,  Mississippi,  Alabama,  South  Carolina, 
North  Carolina  and  Virginia  have  all  adopted 
amendments  to  their  constitutions  which  prac 
tically  nullify  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth 
Amendments  to  the  United  States  Constitution, 
which  the  honor  of  these  states  was  pledged  not 
to  do  when  they  were  re-admitted  into  the  Union 
at  the  close  of  the  war  of  secession !  In  Virginia 


60  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

the  amendment  was  established  without  submit 
ting  the  question  to  the  popular  vote.  To 
secure  these  amendments  in  other  states,  fraud 
and  intimidation  is  alleged  to  have  been  used, 
and  the  Southern  states  that  have  not  amended 
their  constitutions  have  effected  the  same  results 
by  a  system  of  political  jugglery  with  the  Negro's 
ballots. 

"The  Southern  states  seem  to  live  in  mortal 
dread  of  the  Negro  with  a  ballot.  They  imagine 
a  Pandora's  box  of  evils  will  open  upon  them  if 
the  Negro  is  allowed  to  vote.  This  feeling  arises 
more  from  the  fact  that  the  whites  want  the  of 
fices  than  from  any  other  cause.  Past  experience 
shows  that  Negroes  have  never  attempted  to  claim 
all  of  the  offices,  even  where  they  did  ninety-nine 
per  cent,  of  the  voting.  It  is  a  notable  fact  that 
in  North  Carolina  during  the  reconstruction  times, 
when  few  white  men  voted  and  Negroes  had  a 
monopoly  of  the  ballot,  that  white  men  were  put 
forward  for  official  positions.  The  same  condi 
tion  existed  in  the  period  from  1894  to  1898,  dur 
ing  the  '  Fusion  Movement,'  when  out  of  ninety- 
six  counties,  each  of  which  had  three  commissioners 
elected  by  the  people,  only  four  counties  out  of 
the  ninety-six  had  a  Negro  commissioner ;  and  the 


Now  and  Then  61 

commissioners  in  two-thirds  of  the  counties  were 
elected  principally  by  Negro  votes — in  many  of 
the  eastern  counties,  almost  wholly  by  them.  Out 
of  ninety-six  counties  the  Negroes  never  demanded 
a  single  sheriff  or  a  mayor  of  a  city,  town  or  vil 
lage.  There  were  a  few  Negro  magistrates  in  the 
eastern  counties,  but  always  more  white  ones  near 
by  and  under  a  provision  of  a  North  Carolina 
statute  any  defendant  who  thinks  he  cannot  get 
justice  before  the  magistrate  in  whose  court  he  is 
summoned  for  trial,  can  have  his  case  moved  to 
some  other  justice. 

"  The  evils  of  reconstruction  were  due  to  the 
general  demoralization  which  followed  the  Civil 
War,  rather  than  to  the  Negro.  War  is  '  hell ' 
and  so  is  its  aftermath. 

"  Another  pet  assertion  of  the  opponents  of 
Negro  suffrage  is  that  Negro  government  is  ex 
pensive.  Those  who  despair  of  reaching  the 
American  conscience  in  any  other  way  hope  to  do 
so  through  the  pocket  argument,  commercialism 
if  you  please.  This  argument,  like  the  others, 
has  no  facts  for  a  basis.  It  is  a  phantom,  a  delu 
sion  and  is  intended  to  affect  the  business  element 
of  the  North,  which  people  sometimes  mistakenly 
think  has  more  respect  for  prices  than  princi- 


62  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

pies.  It  will  not  do,  however,  to  listen  to  the 
siren  of  commercialism  whose  songs  are  composed 
by  advocates  of  Negro  disfranchised  en  t.  There 
is  method  in  the  spell  she  would  bring  upon 
you,  and  her  story  is  literally  nothing  but  a 
song. 

"  The  truth  is  that  during  the  whole  period  of 
the  '  Fusion  Movement '  North  Carolina  never 
had  a  more  economical  government — taxes  then 
were  93c.  on  a  hundred  dollar  valuation;  taxes 
now  are  $1.23.  North  Carolina  six  per  cent, 
bonds  then  sold  for  $1.10 ;  they  now  sell  for 
$1.09.  The  Fusion  government  made  the  state 
penitentiary  self-supporting  ;  the  white  supremacy 
government  has  run  it  into  debt  to  the  amount  of 
$50,000.  Under  the  Fusion  government,  most  of 
the  counties  paid  off  their  debts  and  had  a  surplus 
in  their  treasuries  for  the  first  time  since  the  war. 
Under  the  Fusion  government  more  miles  of  rail 
road  were  built  than  in  any  period  of  the  same 
length  before  or  since,  more  cotton  factories  were 
established ;  one  of  them  being  owned  and  oper 
ated  by  Negroes.  A  silk  mill  operated  entirely  by 
Negro  labor,  from  foremen  down,  was  also  estab 
lished.  The  fees  of  public  officers  were  cut  down 
about  one-third.  These  are  some  of  the  phases  of 


Now  and  Then  63 

the  Fusion  government — a  government  based  al 
most  entirely  on  Negro  votes — that  the  enemies 
of  Negro  suffrage  do  not  discuss. 

"  It  is  useless  to  refer  to  the  period  of  reconstruc 
tion  to  disprove  the  theory  that  Negro  suffrage 
would  entail  an  expensive  government  on  the 
South,  when  we  have  the  recent  experiment  in 
North  Carolina  before  us.  For  the  sake  of  ar 
gument,  we  might  admit  that  the  Negro  was  unfit 
for  suffrage  forty  years  ago,  but  that  by  no  means 
proves  that  he  is  unfit  now.  Forty  years  of  ex 
perience  under  American  institutions  have  taught 
him  many  lessons.  He  is  no  longer  the  (  child- 
man/  as  the  white  supremacy  advocates  call  him. 
These  people  are  as  false  in  their  theories  as  were 
the  pro-slavery  advocates  who  maintained  the  ab 
surd  proposition  that  if  the  Negro  was  emancipated 
he  would  soon  perish,  for  want  of  sufficient  ability 
to  feed  and  clothe  himself.  Forty  years  after 
emancipation — about  as  long  as  Moses  was  in  the 
wilderness — in  spite  of  these  false  prophecies,  we 
can  now  find  some  of  the  sons  of  the  prophets 
fearing  and  foretelling,  not  that  the  Negroes  will 
perish,  but  that  they  will  outstrip  them  in  the 
race  of  life  !  So  the  white  man  in  the  new  con 
stitution  is  to  be  allowed  to  vote  on  his  c  grand- 


64  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

daddy's '  *  merits  and  the  Negro  must  vote  on  his 
own. 

"  These  politicians  were  afraid  to  base  the  right 
to  vote  on  merit,  as  they  feared  the  Negro  would 
win.f  Among  these  people  a  Negro  has  to  be 

*  The  grandfather  clause  in  the  North  Carolina  constitution,  as 
recently  amended,  gives  illiterate  whites  the  right  to  vote  if  their 
grandfathers  voted  prior  to  1867.  The  negroes  were  enfranchised 
in  1867  and  their  grandfathers  therefore  could  not  have  voted 
prior  to  that  time.  So,  while  all  negroes  must  be  able  to  read  and 
write  the  constitution,  in  order  to  vote,  the  illiterate  white  man 
may  do  so  because  his  "  grand-daddy  "  voted  prior  to  1867. 

tAs  Mr.  A.  V.  Dockery,  who  is  a  competent  authority,  so 
tersely  said  in  the  New  York  Age,  June  23;  1904,  the  Negro  has 
been  practically  the  only  natural  Republican  in  the  South.  That 
a  considerable  number  of  soldiers  were  furnished  by  the  South  to 
the  Union  army  during  the  Civil  War  is  not  contested,  and  proves 
little  as  to  political  conditions  then  and  for  several  decades  later. 
It  is  well  known  that  the  mountain  section  of  North  Carolina, 
Tennessee,  Kentucky  and  Virginia  sent  many  soldiers  to  the  North 
ern  army;  it  may  not  be  so  well  known  that  Madison  county,  North 
Carolina,  the  home  of  Judge  Pritchard,  contributed  more  soldiers 
to  the  Union  cause,  in  proportion  to  population,  than  any  other 
county  in  the  whole  United  States. 

It  was  not  asserted  that  all  those  soldiers  were  then,  or  after 
wards  became,  Republicans.  Before  the  emancipation,  there  were 
some  Republicans  in  this  sparsely  settled  section,  it  is  true,  but 
aggressive  Republicanism  in  the  South  got  its  impetus  and  had  its 
birth  in  the  actual  emancipation,  not  necessarily  the  enfranchise 
ment,  of  the  Negro. 

Yet  when  this  remnant  of  white  Republicans  could  no  longer 
protect  the  Negro  in  his  right  to  vote,  and  successive  Congresses 
supinely  consented  to  his  disfranchisement,  the  South 's  contribu- 


Now  and  Then  65 

twice  as  smart  as  a  white  man  to  merit  the  same 
favors,  yet  in  a  recent  Civil  Service  examination 
in  Atlanta  19  Negroes  out  of  40  passed,  while  only 
26  whites  out  of  115  succeeded.  In  an  examina 
tion  of  law  students  by  the  Supreme  Court  of 
North  Carolina  only  40  per  cent,  of  the  whites 
passed,  while  100  per  cent,  of  the  colored  got 
licenses.  A  hundred  other  illustrations  might  be 
made  showing  the  speciousness  of  the  arguments 
put  forth  as  to  Negro  incompetency.  The  fact  is 
that  there  is  no  use  in  arguing  such  a  proposition. 

tion  to  Congress  consisted  of  less  than  half  a  dozen  Republican 
congressmen,  and  these  only  from  the  aforesaid  mountain  district. 

The  Negro,  being  held  up  as  a  terrible  hobgoblin  to  political 
white  folks,  it  was  necessary  to  destroy  his  citizenship;  which  was 
accomplished  by  wily  and  cruel  means.  About  one  and  a  half 
million  citizens  were  disfranchised  and  yet  we  have  a  paradox. 
This  vast  mass  of  manhood  is  represented  in  Congress — in  what 
way  ?  By  arbitrarily  nullifying  the  constitution  of  the  Nation. 
It  was  the  boast  in  1861  that  one  Southern  man  could  whip  ten 
Yankees.  May  not  this  same  class  of  Southern  politicians  now 
proudly  and  truly  boast  that  one  Southern  vote  is  equal  to  ten 
Yankee  votes  ? 

Have  the  ten  million  American  Negroes  any  more  direct  repre 
sentation  in  Congress  than  the  ten  million  Filipinos  ? 

In  1896  there  was  only  one  party  in  the  South  and  its  primaries 
elected  the  congressmen.  Seven  congressional  districts  in  South 
Carolina  cast  a  total  of  less  than  40,000  votes  for  the  seven  con 
gressmen  elected  to  the  Fifty-seventh  Congress. 

For  the  same  Congress,  Minnesota  cast  a  total  of  276,000  votes 
for  seven  congressmen,  an  average  of  39,428  votes  each;  whereas 
E 


66  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

The  effort  made  to  suppress  the  Negro  has  no  just 
basis.  There  has  simply  been  a  determination  to 
do  it,  right  or  wrong.  The  advocates  of  white 
supremacy  who  watch  the  current  of  events,  have 
seen  that  the  decitizenization  of  the  Negro  can  be 
accomplished  with  the  shot-gun,  without  trouble  to 
themselves,  and  they  have  accomplished  the  task. 
They  have  asked  to  be  let  alone  with  the  Negro 
problem;  they  have  been  let  alone  since  1876, 
when  the  Republican  party  dropped  the  Negro 
question  as  an  issue.  Since  that  time  they  have 

the  average  in  South  Carolina  was  less  than  6,000  votes  per  con 
gressman.  In  other  words,  one  South  Carolina  congressman  is 
equal  to  seven  of  the  Minnesota  article. 

If  every  "  lily  white  "  Democrat  in  the  old  fighting  South  during 
the  last  decade  of  the  twentieth  century  (the  "  lily  white "  age) 
had  received  an  office,  no  benefit  for  the  so-called  Negro  party 
would  have  been  attained,  and  the  South  would  have  remained  as 
solid  as  ever.  The  men  there  who  amassed  fortunes  as  a  result  of 
the  Republican  policy  of  protection,  remained  Democrats,  not 
withstanding  the  elimination  of  the  Negro  as  a  political  factor. 
The  "  lily  white  "  party  had  no  other  principle  except  greed  for 
office.  It  was  a  delicious  sham  and  the  people  knew  it,  white  and 
blacks  alike.  It  was  distinctly  proven  that  as  long,  and  no  longer, 
as  there  was  any  Federal  office  in  the  South  to  be  filled  there  was 
a  Democrat  or  a  "  lily  white  "  handy  and  anxious  to  fill  it  and 
willing  to  keep  his  mouth  shut  only  during  the  occupation. 

It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  President  Roosevelt  early  in 
his  administration  gave  the  "  lily-white"  party  to  understand  that 
it  was  persona  non  grata  at  the  White  House.  As  a  true  patriot 
and  an  honest  man  he  could  not  have  done  less. 


Now  and  Then  67 

been  politically  tying  the  Negroes'  hands.  Real 
izing  his  industrial  usefulness,  the  aim  has  been  to 
eliminate  him  from  politics  and  at  the  same  time 
use  him  as  a  tax-payer  and  a  producer.  The  para 
doxical  task  of  defining  his  citizenship  as  that  of 
one  with  all  the  burdens  and  duties,  less  the  rights 
and  privileges  thereof,  has  been  quite  successfully 
performed. 

"  The  white  supremacy  advocates  seem  to  have 
selected  a  propitious  period  for  this  work — a  time 
when  the  Negro's  friends  in  the  Republican  party 
are  occupied  with  similar  problems  in  Cuba  and 
the  Philippines.  '  If  the  Republicans  deny  self- 
government  to  the  Philippines,  Porto  Rico  and 
Cuba,'  inquire  the  Southerners,  ( why  have  n't  we 
the  right  to  do  the  same  to  Negroes  ?  Why  allow 
Negroes  in  the  South  to  rule  and  deny  the  same 
to  Negroes  in  Hawaii  ? '  are  questions  they  are 
asking  with  some  force.  Whatever  else  the  ad 
vocates  of  white  supremacy  may  lack  they  are  not 
lacking  in  shrewdness.  Their  disfranchising 
schemes  have  flaunted  themselves  under  the  very 
nose  of  the  government,  and  bid  it  defiance  in  the 
National  Senate  with  unmistakable  boldness,  since 
the  Spanish- American  War  and  the  policy  grow 
ing  out  of  it.  However  there  seems  to  be  a  man 


68  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

in  the  White  House  who  wants  to  set  no  example 
that  white  supremacy  can  follow ;  so  far  as  his  in 
dicated  policy  in  dealing  with  Cuba  was  concerned, 
President  Roosevelt  determined  that  the  black 
people  of  Cuba  should  be  free. 

"  But  the  subordination  of  the  Negro  cannot  last, 
there  will  always  be  white  people  in  this  country 
who  will  believe  in  his  equality  before  the  law. 
These  principles  are  too  firmly  entrenched  in  the 
hearts  of  Americans  to  be  utterly  subverted. 
They  are  the  bed  rock  on  which  the  government 
was  founded — on  which  the  Civil  War  was  main 
tained.  Too  much  of  blood  and  treasure  has  been 
spent  now  to  go  backwards.  These  principles 
have  been  established  at  too  great  a  cost  to 
abandon  them  so  soon.  It  is  true  that  the  white 
supremacy  advocates  seem  now  in  control  of  the 
situation,  but  that  also  seemed  true  of  the  advo 
cates  of  slavery  before  the  war.  While  the 
enemies  of  liberty  have  always  been  cunning,  yet 
like  all  other  advocates  of  false  doctrines  who  get 
power,  they  usually  abuse  it ;  the  South  might 
have  held  her  slaves  for  many  years  longer,  had 
she  not  overstepped  the  mark  by  trying  to  force 
the  institution  on  the  North.  She  attempted  to 
extend  slavery  into  new  territories,  she  even  at- 


Now  and  Then  69 

tempted  to  capture  her  slaves  in  the  streets  of 
anti-slavery  cities  like  Boston,  by  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law — under  the  very  noses  of  the  abolition 
ists  !  Had  the  pro-slavery  people  been  satisfied 
with  restricted  slavery,  the  abolitionists  might 
have  had  harder  work  in  dethroning  the  institu 
tion. 

"  If  the  question  of  lynching  had  been  con 
fined  to  Negroes  guilty  of  assaults  on  females  some 
justification  might  exist,  but  it  has  been  extended 
to  all  crimes  ;  and  not  satisfied  with  hanging,  burn 
ing  by  slow  fire  has  been  substituted,  accompanied 
by  stabbing,  the  cutting  off  of  finger  joints,  the 
digging  out  of  eyes,  and  other  torture. 

"  On  the  question  of  civil  equality,  the  '  jim- 
crow '  system  has  not  sufficed  ;  like  the  horse  leech, 
they  continually  call  for  more.  If  practiced  only 
in  the  South  it  might  stand,  but  an  attempt  has 
been  made  to  cover  the  country,  and  the  Pres 
ident  himself  must  not  treat  a  colored  gentleman 
otherwise  than  as  a  scullion — according  to  the  ad 
vocates  of  white  supremacy.  In  their  doctrine  all 
Negroes  are  to  be  humiliated.  This  tendency  to 
dictate  to  others  and  go  to  extremes  is  character 
istic,  and  it  means  that  we  may  always  depend  on 
this  class  of  individuals  to  go  too  far,  and  by  over- 


70  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

stepping  the  mark  to  turn  the  country  against 
them. 

"  If  a  fool  has  rope  enough  the  end  is  easy  to 


see." 


After  reading  the  article,  I  turned  to  the  Doctor, 
and  said,  "  These  statements  are  essentially  correct, 
according  to  my  recollection  of  those  times,  and  I 
will  say  further  that  there  were  grave  doubts  one 
hundred  years  ago  as  to  the  permanency  of  our 
institutions  under  the  strain  of  the  Negro  problem ; 
and  no  less  prominent  was  the  labor  agitation  or 
the  war  between  capital  and  labor.  It  is  a  happy 
realization  for  me  to  return  to  my  country  and 
find  these  questions  peaceably  adjusted  and  that 
the  South,  which  was  for  a  long  time  considered 
obdurate  on  this  subject,  has  led  in  bringing 
about  this  happy  solution,  in  spite  of  the  proph 
ecies  of  many  writers  like  this  one.  But  the 
problem  I  have  been  laboring  with  ever  since  my 
second  advent,  as  it  were,  is,  how  was  it  all  done  ? 

"  Well,  we  Southern  people  changed  our  leaders. 
We  took  men  of  noble  character;  men  who  ap 
pealed  to  reason  and  humanity,  rather  than  pan 
dered  to  the  lowest  passions  of  the  people,"  he  said. 

"  Tell  me,  Dr.  Newell,  how  the  labor  question 


Now  and  Then  71 

was  settled  and  how  the  labor  unions  learned  to 
leave  off  discriminating  against  Negroes.  Accord 
ing  to  my  best  recollections  the  American  labor 
organizations,  almost  without  exception,  excluded 
Negro  members." 

"  Yes/'  replied  Dr.  Newell,  "  that  is  correct,  as 
I  have  gleaned  from  the  history  of  your  times,  but 
— as  all  injustice  must — this  particular  instance  fol 
lowed  the  fixed  rule  and  finally  gave  way  to  truth. 
Such  discriminations  were  incompatible  with  the 
spirit  and  trend  of  our  government.  The  labor 
leaders,  however,  yielded  in  the  end  more  from  a 
sense  of  necessity  than  of  justice  to  the  Negro.  As 
Lincoln  said,  the  nation  could  not  exist  half  slave 
and  half  free,  and  as  Elaine  said,  in  his  famous 
Augusta  speech,  no  imaginary  line  could  continue 
to  divide  free  labor  from  serf  labor.  The  labor 
leaders  found,  after  serious  second  thought,  that  it 
would  be  better  to  emancipate  Negro  labor  than 
to  lend  their  efforts  towards  keeping  it  in  serfdom. 
For  a  long  time  the  labor  organizations  desired 
the  Negroes  deported,  as  a  solution  of  the  problem 
for  themselves  alone.  They  found  various  in 
fluences,  especially  capital,  opposed  to  this ;  as  one 
writer  put  it,  '  the  Dollar  was  no  respector  of  per 
sons  and  would  as  soon  hop  into  the  hands  of  a 


72  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

black  man,  in  consideration  of  the  performance  of 
a  service,  as  in  those  of  a  white  one.'  Capital 
wanted  the  work  done  and  the  man  who  could  do 
it  the  cheapest  and  best  was  the  man  that  got  the 
Dollar  every  time.  This  phase  of  the  question 
was  a  constant  menace  to  organized  labor,  and 
finally  caused  a  revolution  in  its  tactics.  White 
labor  began  to  see  that  it  would  be  better  to  lift 
the  Negro  up  to  the  same  scale  with  itself,  by  ad 
mitting  him  into  their  organization,  than  to  seek 
his  debasement.  If  Negroes  were  in  a  condition 
to  work  for  fifty  cents  per  day  and  would  do  so, 
and  capital  would  employ  them,  then  white  men 
must  accept  the  same  terms  or  get  no  work !  This, 
followed  to  its  last  analysis,  meant  that  white 
laborers  must  provide  for  their  families  and  educate 
their  children  on  fifty  cents  per  day,  if  the  Negroes 
could  do  it." 

"  Did  not  the  South  object  to  the  organization 
of  Negro  labor?"  I  asked. 

"The  Southern  people,  at  first,  strongly  ob 
jected. 

"  The  laboring  white  people  of  the  South  have 
made  serious  blunders  in  their  position  on  the  Ne 
gro  problem,  having  acted  all  along  on  the  pre 
sumption  that  the  proper  solution  was  to  '  keep 


Now  and  Then  73 

the  Negro  down.'  Towards  this  end,  they  bent 
their  best  energies,  under  the  mistaken  idea  of 
conserving  their  own  interests,  not  realizing  the 
all-important  fact  that  as  long  as  there  was  a  large 
number  of  Negroes  in  their  midst  who  would  work 
for  only  fifty  cents  per  day  as  above  stated,  and 
capital  was  disposed  to  employ  them,  just  so  long 
would  every  laboring  white  man  have  to  accept 
the  same  wages  as  the  Negro. 

"  The  intelligent  solution  of  the  problem  was 
found  by  making  the  Negro  see  what  his  interests 
were,  by  taking  him  into  the  labor  unions,  where 
he  could  be  educated  up  to  an  intelligent  appre 
ciation  of  the  value  of  his  labor ;  instead  of  seek 
ing  further  to  degrade  him  by  oppression,  with  the 
consequent  result  of  lowering  the  white  man's 
scale  of  wages.  Further  it  has  been  found  that 
oppression  does  not  oppress  when  aimed  at  the 
Negro — he  rather  thrives  under  it.  In  those 
communities  where  he  was  most  oppressed  and  the 
hand  of  every  laboring  white  man  seemed  to  be 
against  him,  the  Negro  thrived  and  prospered  to  a 
marked  degree.  Oppression  simply  drives  negroes 
together,  they  concentrate  their  trade  in  their 
own  stores  and  spend  their  wages  among  them 
selves  to  a  greater  extent  than  otherwise — and 


74  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

thus  it  more  often  than  otherwise  happened,  that 
Negro  laborers  as  a  mass,  in  such  communities, 
lived  in  better  homes,  and  educated  their  children 
better  than  the  white  laborers.  The  eyes  of  the 
Southern  white  laboring  men  began  to  see  this 
point  and  a  change  of  base  took  place,  and  now 
they  are  and  have  been  for  a  long  time,  seeking 
to  elevate  the  Negro  laborer  to  their  own  standard 
to  keep  him  from  pulling  them  down — a  most  in 
telligent  view  of  the  matter ! 

"The  South  had  congratulated  itself  on  being 
free  from  the  strikes  and  lock-outs  caused  by  or 
ganized  labor  in  the  North.  Their  contention  was 
that  the  Negroes  could  not  act  intelligently  in  any 
organization,  and  that  serious  consequences  would 
certainly  follow.  But  all  such  predictions  failed 
to  materialize  after  the  Negroes  were  organized. 
The  work  of  organizing  did  not  stop  with  their 
admission  into  labor  unions  but  courses  of  in 
struction  were  mapped  out  and  competent  people 
were  employed  to  drill  the  members  in  the  princi 
ples  of  the  order ;  and,  so  far  as  possible,  in  the 
advanced  methods  of  handling  tools.  The  result 
was  the  creation  of  a  much  better  class  of  work 
men,  better  wages  and  better  living  for  all. 

"  The  unions  also  opened  their  doors  to  women 


Now  and  Then  75 

in  separate  meetings.  Schools  of  Domestic 
Science  were  established  and  those  who  employed 
servants  soon  found  that  they  could  leave  the 
household  and  kitchen  work  to  a  master-hand. 
The  wives  and  mothers  of  employers  were  eman 
cipated  from  constantly  '  overseeing.'  There  was 
a  vast  difference  between  the  professional  domestic 
servant,  who  needed  only  orders,  which  would  be 
carried  out  faithfully,  and  the  'blunderbuss/ 
who  was  continually  at  sea  in  the  absence  of  the 
directing  hand  and  mind  of  her  mistress.  The 
Southern  people  began  to  recognize  the  difference, 
and  soon  became  the  firm  champions  of  the  new 
system,  and  welcomed  the  new  efforts  of  the  labor 
unions  as  a  blessing  rather  than  a  curse." 

"  But,  Doctor,  am  I  to  understand  that  there  are 
no  labor  problems  at  all  in  the  country  at  present  ?  " 

"No,  not  exactly  that;  organized  labor  still 
has  its  problems,  but  you  must  remember  that 
they  are  not  of  the  same  character  as  those  of  a 
hundred  years  ago.  The  essentials  of  life,  such  as 
coal,  iron,  oil  and  other  natural  products  are  now 
handled  by  the  National  Government,  and  the 
government  is  pledged  to  see  to  it  that  labor  in 
the  production  of  these  commodities  is  paid  a  fair 
share  of  the  surplus  accruing  from  sales.  No  at- 


76  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

tempt  at  profit  is  allowed  ;  the  management  is 
similar  to  that  of  the  Post  Office  Department, 
which  has  been  conducted  from  the  beginning  for 
the  convenience  of  the  people,  and  not  for  revenue 
to  the  Government.  The  workmen  are  paid  well 
and  the  cost  to  the  consumer  is  lessened  by  dis 
carding  the  profits  that  formerly  went  into  private 
purses.  We  have  no  more  strikes  and  lock-outs  ; 
the  chief  concern  of  the  labor  unions  now  is  to 
raise  their  less  skillful  members  to  a  higher  stand 
ard  (for  a  long  time  this  effort  was  especially 
directed  toward  the  Negro  members),  and  to  assist 
those  who,  because  of  infirmity  and  disease,  find 
themselves  incapacitated  for  further  service.  It 
may  be  well  said  that  the  problem  of  '  wherewithal 
shall  we  be  clothed '  is  solved  in  this  country,  so 
far  as  organized  labor  is  concerned,  and  more  time 
is  now  left  for  the  perfection  of  skill  and  individ 
ual  improvement." 

"  A  delightful  situation,  as  compared  with  the 
past  as  I  recollect  it  to  be,"  I  remarked — "  when 
labor  was  paid  barely  enough  to  live  on,  while 
enormous  wealth  was  being  accumulated  in  the 
hands  of  a  few  fortunate  people  who  happened  to 
be  born  into  opportunities — or,  better  still,  born 
rich. 


Now  and  Then  77 

"  As  I  remember  the  past,  the  laboring  people 
in  coal  and  iron  mines  earned  barely  enough  for 
subsistence  and  their  hours  of  toil  were  so  long 
that  anything  like  self -improvement  was  impos 
sible.  They  were  in  a  continual  row  with  their 
employers,  who  revelled  in  luxury  and  rebelled 
against  a  10  per  cent,  increase  in  wages,  and  who 
in  many  instances,  rather  than  pay  it,  would  close 
down  the  mines  until  their  workmen  were  starved 
into  submission.  I  never  could  reconcile  myself 
to  the  logic  of  the  principle  that  it  was  lawful  for 
capital  to  thus  oppress  labor.  I  think  the  legal 
maxim  of  sic  utere  tuo  ut  alienum  non  laedas  (so 
use  your  own  as  not  to  injure  another)  applies 
with  force  in  this  instance.  The  application  of  it 
is  usually  made  in  suits  for  damages,  where  one 
person  has  injured  another  by  negligence.  But 
the  force  of  the  maxim  is  applicable  to  capital  as 
well,  and  he  who  would  use  money  (though  in 
fact  it  be  legally  his  own)  to  oppress  others  has 
violated  both  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  maxim. 
In  saying  this  I  would  not  be  understood  as  in 
dulging  in  that  sickly  sentimentality  which  de 
spises  all  rich  people  simply  because  they  are 
rich,  but  rather  to  condemn  the  illegitimate  use  of 
riches.  A  rich  man  can  be  a  blessing  as  well  as 


78  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

a  curse  to  his  community,  and  I  am  indeed  happy 
to  learn  and  see  for  myself  that  this  is  now  the 
rule,  rather  than  the  exception,  as  formerly. 

"There  is  another  phase  of  the  question  that 
you  have  not  yet  referred  to.  What  is  the  con 
dition  of  the  farm  laborers  of  the  Southern  States  ?  " 
I  asked.  "When  I  left  they  were  working  from 
sunrise  to  sunset,  the  men  earning  fifty  cents  and 
the  women  thirty-five  cents  per  day,  and  they  lived 
in  huts  with  mud  chimneys — often  a  family  of  six 
or  eight  in  one  room.  They  had  a  three  months' 
school  during  the  winter  season,  when  there  were 
no  crops,  and  these  were  not  too  often  taught  by 
skilled  teachers.  Has  their  condition  improved  so 
that  it  is  in  keeping  with  the  times  ?  " 

At  this  juncture  the  Doctor  was  called  out  of 
the  room  before  he  could  reply. 

While  waiting  for  him  to  return,  I  had  a  sur 
prise.  His  private  secretary  came  in  and  seated 
himself  at  a  phonographic  typewriter  which 
took  down  the  words  in  shorthand,  typewrote 
them  on  a  sheet  for  preservation  in  the  office,  and 
at  the  same  time  sent  the  letter  by  telephone  to 
its  destination.  But  my  surprise  was  awakened 
by  the  fact  that  this  private  secretary  was  a 
Negro  -,  not  full  black,  but  mixed  blood — in  color, 


Now  and  Then  79 

between  an  Indian  and  a  Chinaman.  I  ascer 
tained  from  this  young  man  that  it  was  now  "  quite 
common  "  for  Southern  white  men  of  large  affairs 
to  employ  Negroes  for  higher  positions  in  their 
offices,  counting  rooms,  and  stores.  (They  had  a 
precedent  for  this  in  the  custom  of  the  Romans, 
who  used  their  educated  Greek  slaves  in  this 
way.)  He  also  told  me  that  the  matter  of  social 
equality  was  not  mentioned.  He  naturally  as 
sociated  with  his  own  people.  He  simply  wanted 
to  do  his  work  faithfully,  and  neither  expected 
nor  asked  to  sit  by  his  employer's  fireside.  In  a 
word,  he  showed  that  to  give  the  Negro  an  edu 
cation  need  not  necessarily  "  turn  his  head."* 
The  young  man  said,  "  Our  theory  has  kept  the 

*  A.  A.  Gunby,  Esq.,  a  member  of  the  Louisiana  bar,  in  a  recently 
published  address  on  Negro  education,  read  before  the  Southern 
Educational  Association,  which  met  in  Atlanta,  1892,  took  diamet 
rically  opposite  ground  to  those  who  oppose  higher  education  be 
cause  it  will  lead  to  the  amalgamation  of  the  races.  Mr.  Gunby 
said :  "  The  idea  that  white  supremacy  will  be  endangered  by  Ne 
gro  education  does  not  deserve  an  answer.  The  claim  that  their 
enlightenment  will  lead  to  social  equality  and  amalgamation  is 
equally  untenable.  The  more  intelligent  the  Negro  becomes  the 
better  he  understands  the  true  relations  and  divergencies  of  the 
races,  the  less  he  is  inclined  to  social  intermingling  with  the  whites. 
Education  will  really  emphasize  and  widen  the  social  gulf  between 
the  whites  and  blacks  to  the  great  advantage  of  the  State,  for  it  is 
a  heterogeneous,  and  not  a  homogeneous,  people  that  make  a  re 
public  strong  and  progressive." 


80  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

two  races  pure  and  has  developed  both  the  Saxon 
and  the  Negro  types  and  preserved  the  best  traits 
of  each." 

I  noticed  that  the  subdued  look  of  the  old  time 
Negro  was  absent  and  that,  without  any  attempt 
at  display,  this  man  possessed  "  le  grande  air  " 
which  is  a  coveted  attribute  in  the  highest  walks 
of  life.  I  had  already  observed  that  an  advance 
in  civilization  produced  more  individuality  and 
more  personal  freedom  in  choosing  one's  associ 
ates.  It  was  not  expected  that  a  man  was  the 
social  equal  of  another  because  he  worked  at  the 
same  bench  with  him,  or  rode  in  the  same  car  on 
the  railroad.  That  was  now  considered  the  postu 
late  of  an  ignoramus. 

Individuality  is  a  marked  development  of  ad 
vanced  civilization — of  this  I  have  always  been 
aware,  the  more  so  since  witnessing  the  changes 
wrought  during  my  absence.  Individuality  gives 
room  for  thought,  out  of  which  is  born  invention 
and  progress.  When  the  individual  is  not  al 
lowed  to  separate  from  the  crowd  in  thought  and 
action,  the  aggregate  will,  the  aggregate  thought, 
is  his  master  and  he  "  dare  not  venture  for  fear 
of  a  fall."  Progress  is  measured  only  by  the  de 
gree  of  swiftness  made  by  the  mass.  Some  indi- 


Now  and  Then  81 

viduals  may  be  able  to  make  better  speed,  but  the 
mass  holds  them  back.  Four  horses  are  pulling  a 
load;  two  may  be  able  to  go  faster  than  the 
others,  but  the  speed  of  the  team  is  measured  by 
the  speed  of  the  slowest  horse. 

This  does  not  always  appear  apropos  of  the 
progress  of  communities,  for  a  community  may 
be  led  by  a  few  progressive  spirits  who  seem  to 
reflect  upon  it  their  own  standard  and  tone,  but 
the  less  progressive  members  of  such  a  community 
have  merely  subordinated  their  wills  for  the  time 
being  and  may  on  any  occasion  see  fit  to  exercise 
them;  and  at  this  point  the  illustration  becomes 
true  again. 

"Now,"  said  Doctor  Newell,  on  his  return,  "I 
am  sorry  our  conversation  was  interrupted,  but 
let  us  proceed.  I  believe  you  desired  to  ask  me 
some  questions  about  the  Negro  farm  laborers,  did 
you  not?'1 

I  replied  that  I  did,  and  recalled  my  state 
ment  as  to  their  condition  when  I  last  knew  of 
them. 

"  Oh,  it  is  very  different  from  that  now,  Mr. 
Twitchell.  Many  changes ;  many,  many,  have  oc 
curred  !  You  will  recall  that,  about  the  time  you 
left,  the  different  Southern  states  were  re-recon- 
F 


82  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

structing  themselves,  as  it  were,  by  making  amend 
ments  to  their  constitutions  which  virtually  dis 
franchised  a  large  proportion  of  the  Negro  voters — 
enough  to  put  the  offices  of  the  states  absolutely 
into  the  hands  of  white  men,  as  outlined  in  the 
magazine  article  you  have  just  read,  and  as  you 
stated  in  your  brochure  for  the  Bureau  of  Public 
Utility.  Some  passages  from  a  book  I  have  on 
the  subject  may  remind  you  of  the  discussion  of 
this  question  that  was  going  on  then." 

Signifying  to  his  secretary  what  he  wanted,  he 
read  to  me  the  following  excerpts  from  the  history 
of  those  times : 


"NEGRO    DISFRANCHISEMENT 

"WHAT  DR.  F.  A.  NOBLE  THINKS 

"In  civil  as  in  business  affairs  there  is  nothing 
so  foolish  as  injustice  and  oppression;  there  is 
nothing  so  wise  as  righteousness.  By  the  letter 
of  the  amended  Constitution,  by  the  spirit  and  aim 
of  the  amendments,  and  by  all  the  principles  of 
our  American  democracy,  the  Negro  is  in  posses 
sion  of  the  elective  franchise.  Men  differ  in  their 
views  as  to  whether  it  was  good  policy  to  confer 


Now  and  Then  83 

this  right  upon  him  at  the  time  and  in  the  way, 
and  especially  to  the  extent  to  which  it  was  done ; 
but  the  right  was  conferred,  and  it  is  now  his.  To 
deprive  him  of  this  right,  for  no  other  reason  than 
that  he  is  a  Negro,  is  to  nullify  the  fundamental 
law  of  the  land,  discredit  one  of  the  most  sacred 
results  of  Emancipation,  and  flaunt  contempt  in 
the  face  of  the  idea  of  a  government  of  the  people 
and  by  the  people  and  for  the  people.  To  dis 
courage  the  Negro  from  attempting  to  exercise 
the  right  of  the  ballot  is  to  belittle  him  in  his  own 
estimation,  put  him  at  a  serious  disadvantage  in  the 
estimation  of  others,  and  by  so  much  remand  him 
back  to  the  old  condition  of  servitude  from  which 
he  was  rescued  at  such  cost  to  the  nation.  Wrong 
done  to  the  colored  race  involves  the  white  race  in 
the  catastrophe  which  must  follow.  To  withhold 
justice  is  worse  than  to  suffer  injustice.  A  people 
deprived  of  their  rights  by  the  state  will  not  long 
be  faithful  to  their  duties  to  the  state. 

"WHAT  HON.  CARL  SCHURZ  THINKS 

"  That  the  suppression  of  the  Negro  franchise 

by  direct  or  indirect  means  is  in  contravention  of 

the  spirit  and  intent  of  the  Fifteenth  Amendment 

to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  hardly 


84  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

admits  of  doubt.  The  evident  intent  of  the  Con 
stitution  is  that  the  colored  people  shall  have  the 
right  of  suffrage  on  an  equal  footing  with  the 
white  people.  The  intent  of  the  provisions  of 
the  State  Constitutions  in  question,  as  avowed  by 
many  Southern  men,  is  that  the  colored  people 
shall  not  vote.  However  plausible  it  may  be 
demonstrated  by  ingenious  argument  that  the 
provisions  in  the  State  Constitutions  are  not  in 
conflict  with  the  National  Constitution,  or  that  if 
they  were  their  purpose  could  not  be  effectively 
thwarted  by  judicial  decisions,  yet  it  remains  true 
that  by  many,  if  not  by  all,  of  their  authors  they 
were  expressly  designed  to  defeat  the  universally 
known  and  recognized  intent  of  a  provision  of 
the  national  Constitution.  *  *  * 

"  The  only  plausible  reason  given  for  that  cur 
tailment  of  their  rights  is  that  it  is  not  in  the  in 
terest  of  the  Southern  whites  to  permit  the  blacks 
to  vote.  I  will  not  discuss  here  the  moral  aspect 
of  the  question  whether  A  may  deprive  B  of  his 
rights  if  A  thinks  it  in  his  own  interest  to  do  so, 
and  the  further  question,  whether  the  general  ad 
mission  of  such  a  principle  would  not  banish  jus 
tice  from  the  earth  and  eventually  carry  human 
society  back  into  barbarism.  I  will  rather  discuss 


Now  and  Then  85 

the  question  whether  under  existing  circumstances 
it  would  really  be  the  true  interest  of  the  South 
ern  whites  generally  to  disfranchise  the  colored 
people.  *  *  *  . 

"  Negro  suffrage  is  plausibly  objected  to  on  the 
ground  that  the  great  bulk  of  the  colored  popula 
tion  of  the  South  are  very  ignorant.  This  is  true. 
But  the  same  is  true  of  a  large  portion  of  the  white 
population.  If  the  suffrage  is  dangerous  in  the 
hands  of  certain  voters  on  account  of  their  igno 
rance,  it  is  as  dangerous  in  the  hands  of  ignorant 
whites  as  in  the  hands  of  ignorant  blacks.  To 
remedy  this  two  things  might  be  done  :  To  estab 
lish  an  educational  test  for  admission  to  the  suf 
frage,  excluding  illiterates;  and,  secondly,  to 
provide  for  systems  of  public  instruction  so  as 
to  gradually  do  away  with  illiteracy — subjecting 
whites  and  blacks  alike  to  the  same  restrictions  and 
opening  to  them  the  same  opportunities.  *  *  * 

"  But  most  significant  and  of  evil  augury  is  the 
fact  that  with  many  of  the  Southern  whites  a  well- 
educated  colored  voter  is  as  objectionable  as  an 
ignorant  one,  or  even  more  objectionable,  simply 
on  account  of  his  color.  It  is,  therefore,  not  mere 
dread  of  ignorance  in  the  voting  body  that  arouses 
the  Southern  whites  against  the  colored  voters.  It 


86  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

is  race  antagonism,  and  that  race  antagonism  pre 
sents  a  problem  more  complicated  and  perplexing 
than  most  others,  because  it  is  apt  to  be  unreason 
ing.  It  creates  violent  impulses  which  refuse  to 
be  argued  with. 

"  The  race  antipathy  now  heating  the  Southern 
mind  threatens  again  to  curtail  the  freedom  of  in 
quiry  and  discussion  there — perhaps  not  to  the 
same  extent,  but  sufficiently  to  produce  infinite 
mischief  by  preventing  an  open-minded  consid 
eration  of  one  of  the  most  important  interests. 
*  *  *  And  here  is  the  crucial  point :  There 
will  be  a  movement  either  in  the  direction  of  re 
ducing  the  Negroes  to  a  permanent  condition  of 
serfdom — the  condition  of  the  mere  plantation 
handy  '  alongside  of  the  mule,'  practically  without 
any  rights  of  citizenship — or  a  movement  in  the 
direction  of  recognizing  him  as  a  citizen  in  the 
true  sense  of  the  term.  One  or  the  other  will 
prevail. 

"  That  there  are  in  the  South  strenuous  advo 
cates  of  the  establishment  of  some  sort  of  semi- 
slavery  cannot  be  denied.  Governor  Vardaman, 
of  Mississippi,  is  their  representative  and  most 
logical  statesman.  His  extreme  utterances  are 
greeted  by  many  as  the  bugle-blasts  of  a  great 


Now  and  Then/  87 

leader.  We  constantly  read  articles  in  Southern 
newspapers  and  reports  of  public  speeches  made 
by  Southern  men  which  bear  a  striking  resem 
blance  to  the  pro-slavery  arguments  I  remember 
to  have  heard  before  the  Civil  War,  and  they  are 
brought  forth  with  the  same  passionate  heat  and 
dogmatic  assurance  to  which  we  were  then  accus 
tomed — the  same  assertion  of  the  Negro's  predes 
tination  for  serfdom ;  the  same  certainty  that  he 
will  not  work  without  '  physical  compulsion ' ; 
the  same  contemptuous  rejection  of  Negro  educa 
tion  as  a  thing  that  will  only  unfit  him  for  work  ; 
the  same  prediction  that  the  elevation  of  the  Ne 
gro  will  be  the  degradation  of  the  whites;  the 
same  angry  demand  that  any  advocacy  of  the  Ne 
gro's  rights  should  be  put  down  in  the  South  as 
an  attack  upon  the  safety  of  Southern  society  and 
as  treason  to  the  Southern  cause.  *  *•  * 

"  Thus  may  it  be  said,  without  exaggeration, 
that  by  striving  to  keep  up  in  the  Southern  States 
a  condition  of  things  which  cannot  fail  to  bring 
forth  constant  irritation  and  unrest ;  which  threat 
ens  to  burden  the  South  with  another  '  peculiar 
institution,'  by  making  the  bulk  of  its  laboring 
force  again  a  clog  to  progressive  development,  and 
to  put  the  South  once  more  in  a  position  provok- 


Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 


ingly  offensive  to  the  moral  sense  and  the  enlight 
ened  spirit  of  the  world  outside,  the  reactionists 
are  the  worst  enemies  the  Southern  people  have 
to  fear.  *  *  * 

"A  body  of  high-minded  and  enlightened 
Southerners  may  gradually  succeed  in  convincing 
even  many  of  the  most  prejudiced  of  their  people 
that  white  ignorance  and  lawlessness  are  just  as 
bad  and  dangerous  as  black  ignorance  and  law 
lessness  ;  that  black  patriotism,  integrity,  ability, 
industry,  usefulness,  good  citizenship  and  public 
spirit  are  just  as  good  and  as  much  entitled  to 
respect  and  reward  as  capabilities  and  virtues  of 
the  same  name  among  whites ;  that  the  rights  of 
the  white  man  under  the  Constitution  are  no  more 
sacred  than  those  of  the  black  man ;  that  neither 
white  nor  black  can  override  the  rights  of  the 
other  without  eventually  endangering  his  own ; 
and  that  the  Negro  question  can  finally  be  settled 
so  as  to  stay  settled  only  on  the  basis  of  the  fun 
damental  law  of  the  land  as  it  stands,  by  fair  ob 
servance  of  that  law  and  not  by  any  tricky  cir 
cumvention  of  it.  Such  a  campaign  for  truth  and 
justice,  carried  on  by  the  high-minded  and  en 
lightened  Southerners  without  any  party  spirit — 
rather  favoring  the  view  that  whites  as  well  as 


Now  and  Then  89 

blacks  should  divide  their  votes  according  to  their 
inclinations  between  different  political  parties — 
will  promise  the  desired  result  in  the  same  meas 
ure  as  it  is  carried  on  with  gentle,  patient  and 
persuasive  dignity,  but  also  with  that  unflinching 
courage  which  is,  above  all  things,  needed  to 
assert  that  most  important  freedom — the  freedom 
of  inquiry  and  discussion  against  traditional  and 
deep-rooted  prejudice — a  courage  which  can  be 
daunted  neither  by  the  hootings  of  the  mob  nor 
by  the  supercilious  jeers  of  fashionable  society, 
but  goes  steadily  on  doing  its  work  with  indomit 
able  tenacity  of  purpose. 

"  WHAT    THE    '  NEW   YORK   EVENING  POST  '    THINKS 

"  This  analysis  of  existing  conditions  and  ten 
dencies  in  the  South  is  one  to  which  the  South 
itself  and  the  entire  nation  should  give  heed. 
Mr.  Schurz  clearly  perceives  a  dangerous  drift. 
Slavery  ideas  are  again  asserting  themselves.  The 
movement  to  extinguish  the  Negro's  political 
rights  is  unconcealed.  By  craftily  devised  and 
inequitable  laws  the  suffrage  is  taken  from  him. 
With  all  this  go  naturally  the  desire  and  purpose 
to  keep  him  forever  '  alongside  the  mule/  Negro 
education  is  looked  upon  with  increasing  hostility. 


90  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

Every  door  of  hope  opening  into  the  professions 
is  slammed  in  the  face  of  black  men  merely  be 
cause  they  are  black.  The  South  works  itself  up 
into  hysterics  over  the  President's  spontaneous 
recognition  of  manhood  under  a  black  skin. 
While  philanthropists  and  teachers  are  laboring  to 
raise  the  Negro  to  the  full  level  of  citizenship,  an 
open  and  determined  effort  is  making  at  the  South 
to  thrust  him  back  into  serfdom.  As  Mr.  Schurz 
says,  the  issue  is  upon  the  country,  for  one  ten 
dency  or  the  other  must  prevail. 

"It  is  his  view  of  the  great  urgency  of  the 
juncture  which  leads  him  to  address  a  moving  ap 
peal  to  the  South' s  best.  He  implores  its  leading 
men  to  bestir  themselves  to  prevent  the  lament 
able  injustice  which  is  threatened,  and  partly  ex 
ecuted.  By  withstanding  the  mob  ;  by  upholding 
the  law ;  by  ridding  themselves  of  the  silly  dread 
of  '  social  equality ' ;  by  contending  for  Negro 
education  of  the  broadest  sort ;  by  hailing  every 
step  upward  which  the  black  man  may  take  ;  by 
insisting  upon  the  equality  of  all  men  before  the 
law,  they  can,  Mr.  Schurz  argues  forcibly,  do 
much  to  save  the  South  and  the  country  from  the 
disgrace  and  calamity  of  a  new  slavery.  To  this 
plea  every  humane  patriot  will  add  his  voice. 


Now  and  Then  91 

Mr.  Schurz's  paper  is  also  a  challenge  to  the  mind 
and  conscience  of  the  North.  Unless  they,  too, 
respond  to  the  cause  of  the  Negro — which  to-day 
is  the  cause  of  simple  justice — it  will  languish  and 
die. 

"  WHAT  '  THE   OUTLOOK  '  THINKS 

"It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  so-called 
race  question  is  the  only  capital  which  a  small 
group  of  Southern  politicians  of  the  old  school 
still  possess.  They  have  no  other  questions  or  is 
sues  ;  they  depend  upon  the  race  question  for  a 
livelihood,  and  they  use  every  occasion  to  say  the 
most  extreme  things  and  to  set  the  match  to  all 
the  imflammable  material  in  the  South.  To  these 
politicians  several  occurrences  which  have  hap 
pened  lately  have  been  a  great  boon,  and  they  are 
making  the  most  of  them.  But  there  is  a  large, 
influential  and  growing  group  of  Southern  men, 
loyal  to  their  section,  equally  loyal  to  the  nation, 
open-minded  and  high-minded,  who  are  eager  to 
give  the  South  a  new  policy,  to  rid  it  of  section 
alism,  to  organize  its  spiritual,  moral  and  intellect 
ual  forces,  to  develop  education,  and  to  treat  great 
questions  from  a  national  rather  than  from  a  sec 
tional  point  of  view  ;  men  like  Governor  Aycock, 


92  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

of  North  Carolina,  and  Governor  Montague,  of 
Virginia.  There  is  a  whole  group  of  educational 
leaders  who  represent  the  best  of  the  Old  South 
and  the  best  of  the  New.  It  is  the  duty  of  wise, 
patriotic  men  in  the  North  to  cooperate  with  these 
new  leaders ;  to  strengthen  their  hands  ;  to  recog 
nize  and  aid  the  best  sentiment  in  the  South,  and 
to  stimulate  its  activity.  The  Negro  question  can 
be  settled  by  cooperation  of  the  North  with  the 
South,  by  sympathy,  by  understanding  ;  it  can 
never  be  settled  in  any  other  way. 

"  WHAT  GOV.  ATCOCK,  OF  NORTH  CAROLINA,  THINKS 

"  I  am  proud  of  my  state  because  we  have  solved 
the  Negro  problem,  which  recently  seems  to  have 
given  you  some  trouble.  We  have  taken  him  out 
of  politics,  and  have  thereby  secured  good  gov 
ernment  under  any  party,  and  laid  foundations 
for  the  future  development  of  both  races.  We 
have  secured  peace  and  rendered  prosperity  a  cer 
tainty.  I  am  inclined  to  give  you  our  solution  of 
this  problem.  It  is,  first,  as  far  as  possible,  under 
the  Fifteenth  Amendment,  to  disfranchise  him ; 
after  that,  let  him  alone ;  quit  writing  about  him ; 
quit  talking  about  him ;  quit  making  him  '  the 
white  man's  burden ' ;  let  him  '  tote  his  own  skil- 


Now  and  Then  93 

let ' ;  quit  coddling  him  ;  let  him  learn  that  no 
man,  no  race,  ever  got  anything  worth  the  having 
that  he  did  not  himself  earn  ;  that  character  is  the 
outcome  of  sacrifice,  and  worth  is  the  result  of 
toil ;  that,  whatever  his  future  may  be,  the  pres 
ent  has  in  it  for  him  nothing  that  is  not  the  prod 
uct  of  industry,  thrift,  obedience  to  law  and  up 
rightness  ;  that  he  cannot,  by  resolution  of  council 
or  league,  accomplish  anything ;  that  he  can  do 
much  by  work  ;  that  violence  may  gratify  his  pas 
sions,  but  it  cannot  accomplish  his  ambition  ;  that 
he  may  rarely  eat  of  the  cooking  equality,  but  he 
will  always  find  when  he  does  that  there  is  death  in 
the  pot.  Let  the  white  man  determine  that  no 
man  shall  by  act  or  thought  or  speech  cross  this 
line,  and  the  race  problem  will  be  at  an  end." 

After  reading  these  the  Doctor  explained  that, 
about  the  time  I  left,  the  Negro  population  of  the 
South  began  to  drift  towards  the  Northern  states, 
where  better  wages  were  offered,  on  account  of 
the  improvements  going  on  there. 

"  The  farms  were  the  first  to  be  affected  by  this 
turn  in  affairs,"  said  the  Doctor.  "In  fact,  the 
Negroes  who  had  no  land  very  generally  left  the 
farms  and  this  so  crippled  the  cotton  industry  that 


94  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

within  ten  years  after  the  disfranchising  acts  were 
passed,  there  was  n't  a  '  ten  horse  '  farm  (to  quote 
the  expression  used  in  the  records)  to  be  found  in 
some  of  the  Southern  states  for  miles  and  miles. 
Every  Negro  laborer  who  went  North  found  times 
so  much  better  that  he  wrote  back  for  his  friends. 
The  disfranchising  acts  seemed  to  give  the  dis 
orderly  element  in  Southern  society  a  free  hand. 
The  result  was  that  Negroes  were  mobbed  with 
impunity  for  the  slightest  offences.  In  one  in 
stance  I  read  of  a  Negro  who  accidentally  stepped 
on  a  white  man's  foot.  He  was  promptly  knocked 
down.  As  it  occurred  in  a  public  place  where  a 
small  crowd  had  gathered  to  look  at  base-ball  bul 
letins,  seven  or  eight  of  the  white  by-standers  in 
the  crowd  took  a  kick  and  a  knock  at  him.  A 
policeman  appeared  on  the  scene,  who  arrested 
the  Negro  and  put  him  under  lock  and  key — be 
cause  he  got  knocked  down  ! — as  my  father  used 
to  say  in  relating  the  story.  Then,  too,  the  news 
papers  continued  to  hold  the  Negro  up  to  ridicule 
and  whereas  he  formerly  had  some  of  his  race  on 
juries,  they  were  now  excluded.* 

*  DOES  THE  NEGRO  GET  JUSTICE  IN  OUR  COURTS  ? 

(Charlotte,  N.  C.,  News.) 
The  Charlotte  Observer  makes  the  sweeping  statement  regarding 


Now  and  Then  95 

"  You  can  imagine  that  it  was  getting  very  un 
comfortable  for  the  Negroes  in  the  South  about 
that  time.  Many  of  them  left  for  the  North  and 
West.  Quite  a  number  went  to  Africa — and  Bishop 
Smith  of  the  African  Methodist  Church  induced 
many  to  go  to  Hayti.  Vast  tracts  of  land  in  the 
Southwestern  part  of  the  United  States  were 
opened  up  to  the  cultivation  of  cotton  by  a  na 
tional  system  of  irrigation,  and  the  Government 
employed  Negroes  on  these  improvements  and 
also  in  the  cultivation  of  the  plant  itself,  after  the 
irrigation  system  was  perfected." 

"  What  happened  to  the  Southern  white  farm 
ers  ?  "  I  inquired. 

"  They  moved  to  the  cities  in  large  numbers  and 

the  Negro:  "  He  is  not  ill-treated  nor  improperly  discriminated 
against  except  in  the  courts,  and  for  the  injustice  done  him  there, 
there  seems  to  be  no  remedy." 

A   CLOSE   CONTEST. 

(Charlotte,  N.  C.,  Observer.) 

We  always  feel  sorry  for  a  North  Carolina  jury  which  gets  hold 
of  a  case  in  which  a  black  man  is  the  plaintiff  and  the  Southern 
Railway  Company  the  defendant.  A  jury  in  Rowan  superior  court 
last  week  had  such  a  case  and  must  have  been  greatly  perplexed 
about  which  party  to  the  suit  to  decide  against.  After  due  deli 
beration,  however,  it  decided — how  do  you  suppose — Why,  against 
the  railroad.  But  the  problem  was  one  which  called  for  fasting 
and  prayer. 


96  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

engaged  in  manufacturing.  As  you  will  see  when 
you  begin  to  travel  with  me  the  South  is  now  a 
great  manufacturing  country.  This,  they  found 
later,  was  a  mistake,  as  they  lost  race  vitality  and 
became  virtually  the  slaves  of  the  manufacturers, 
on  whom  they  had  to  depend  for  bread  from  week 
to  week.  The  National  Government,  however, 
came  to  the  relief  of  the  South  in  quite  a  sub 
stantial  way  (at  the  same  time  that  it  assumed  con 
trol  of  all  coal  and  iron  mines,  and  oil  wells)  by 
buying  up  the  cotton  lands  and  parcelling  them 
out  to  young  Negroes  at  a  small  price,  accom 
panied  with  means  and  assistance  for  the  produc 
tion  of  the  crop.  This  was  an  act  of  the  highest 
statesmanship  and  a  great  help  in  the  solution 
of  the  Negro  problem.  It  should  have  come  im 
mediately  after  reconstruction,  but  the  intervening 
interests  of  political  parties  and  ambitious  men 
prevented  it.  A  matter  of  serious  moment  for  a 
long  time  was  how  to  eliminate  party  and  personal 
interests  from  the  equation  of  politics.  Too  often 
good  measures  were  opposed  by  the  different  polit 
ical  parties  with  an  eye  singly  to  these  interests. 
The  great  work  of  General  0.  0.  Howard  in  con 
nection  with  what  was  known  as  the  Freedmen's 
Bureau  was  greatly  hampered  and  met  an  untimely 


Now  and  Then  97 

end  because  of  the  selfishness  and  partisanship  of 
that  period.  In  fact,  this  one  feature  has  stood  in 
the  way  of  progress  in  this  Government  from  its 
earliest  existence.  Example  after  example  might 
be  cited  where  party  policy  and  personal  interest 
has  blocked  the  wheels  of  useful  legislation. 

"  Oxenstiern  said,  '  See  my  son,  with  how  little 
wisdom  nations  are  governed.' 

"  It  is  wonderful  how  tolerant  the  people  of  the 
world  have  been  in  respect  to  bad  government. 
No  group  of  business  men  would  have  allowed  its 
directors  to  spend  the  company's  earnings  in  the 
way  the  rulers  of  the  world  have  done  from  time 
immemorial.  America  has  overlooked  many  of 
these  points  because  of  the  unlimited  opportunities 
here  for  money  making — let  the  high  tide  of  pros 
perity  once  ebb  and  then  these  defects  become 
apparent !  There  were  usually  in  a  government 
office  twice  as  many  employed  to  do  small  tasks 
as  any  business  organization  would  have  thought 
of  hiring,  and  they  were  paid  excellent  salaries.  In 
other  words,  the  more  places  a  boss  could  fill  with 
his  constituents  or  friends,  the  more  public  money 
he  could  cause  to  be  spent  in  his  district,  the  more 
sinecures  he  could  get  for  his  constituents,  the 
more  popular  he  became.  In  addition  to  all  this, 
a 


98  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

he  wasted  the  people's  money  with  long  speeches 
which  were  often  printed  and  distributed  at  the 
Government's  expense.  The  National  Congress 
formerly  was  a  most  expensive  institution.  Its 
methods  of  business  were  highly  extravagant  and 
very  often  the  time  consumed  resulted  in  accom 
plishing  nothing  more  than  a  mere  pittance,  per 
haps,  of  the  work  to  be  done  ;  and  that  was  carried 
through  because  of  party  advantage  or  personal  in 
terest." 


CHAPTER  V 

A  VISIT   TO    PUBLIC    BUILDINGS 


THE  time  had  now  arrived  for  our  promised 
visit  to  some  of  the  public  buildings  of  the 
city  and  we  seated  ourselves  in  an  electric 
motor  car  which  the  Doctor  had  summoned  by 
touching  a  botton.  To  my  surprise,  it  made  the 
trip  alone,  by  traversing  a  course  made  for  this 
purpose,  somewhat  on  the  order  of  the  cash  de 
livery  systems  formerly  used  in  our  large  stores, 
being  elevated  some  twenty  feet  above  the  sur 
face.  The  coaches  were  arranged  to  come  at  a 
call  from  any  number  on  certain  streets. 

The  Doctor  suggested  that  we  should  first  visit 
the  "  Administration  Building."  I  was  expecting 
to  find  Congress  or  some  such  body  in  session,  but 
to  my  surprise  I  was  told  by  the  Doctor  that  Con 
gress  had  been  abolished,  and  that  the  country 
was  run  on  what  I  had  formerly  understood  as  the 
corporation  plan ;  except  that  the  salaries  were 

99 


100  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

not  so  large.  The  business  of  the  Government 
was  entrusted  to  bureaus  or  departments,  and  the 
officers  in  them  were  chosen  for  their  fitness  by  an 
improved  system  of  civil  service. 

"Who  is  president  now,"  I  inquired. 

"President!"  replied  the  Doctor,  in  surprise, 
"  why  we  have  none.  I  never  saw  a  president. 
We  need  none.  We  have  an  Executive  Depart 
ment  which  fills  his  place." 

"What  as  to  proposing  new  measures ?  "  I  asked. 
"  Who  writes  the  annual  messages  suggesting 
them?" 

"  All  this  is  left  to  a  bureau  chosen  for  that  pur 
pose,  whose  duties  are  to  keep  the  nation  informed 
as  to  its  needs,  and  to  formulate  new  plans,  which 
are  carried  out  along  the  idea  of  the  initiative  and 
referendum  system  with  which  you  are  doubtless 
somewhat  acquainted,  as  I  notice  that  it  was  dis 
cussed  as  early  as  1890." 

I  replied  that  I  had  a  recollection  of  seeing  the 
terms  but  I  could  not  give  an  intelligent  defini 
tion  of  them.  Whereupon  the  Doctor  explained 
the  system. 

"  You  see,"  he  said,  "  that  the  time  wasted  in 
Congressional  debate  is  saved  and  the  chance  to 
block  needed  legislation  is  reduced  to  a  minimum. 


A  Visit  to  Public  Buildings  101 

There  are  no  political  offices  to  parcel  out  to 
henchmen,  and  the  ambitions  of  demagogues  are 
not  fostered  at  the  expense  of  the  people.  Eng 
land,  you  will  recollect,  has  had  a  king  only  in 
name  for  four  hundred  years.  The  American 
people  have  found  out  there  is  no  necessity  for 
either  king,  president,  parliament  or  congress, 
and  in  that  respect  we  may  be  able  sooner  or 
later  to  teach  the  mother  country  a  lesson." 

"  To  say  I  am  surprised  at  all  this,  Dr. 
Newell,  is  to  express  my  feelings  but  mildly," 
said  I,  "  but  I  can  now  see  how  the  changes  in 
reference  to  the  Negro  have  been  brought  about. 
Under  our  political  system,  such  as  I  knew  it  to 
be,  these  results  could  not  have  been  reached  in  a 
thousand  years  !  " 

"  Yes,  Mr.  Twitchell,"  replied  the  Doctor,  "  our 
new  system,  as  it  may  be  called,  has  been  a  great 
help  in  settling,  not  only  the  Negro  problem,  but 
many  others;  for  instance  the  labor  question, 
about  which  we  have  already  conversed, — and  the 
end  is  not  yet,  the  hey-day  of  our  glory  is  not 
reached  and  will  not  be  until  the  principles  of  the 
Golden  Rule  have  become  an  actuality  in  this  land." 

I  here  remarked  that  I  always  felt  a  misgiving 
as  to  our  old  system,  which  left  the  Government 


102          Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

and  management  of  the  people's  affairs  in  the 
hands  of  politicians  who  had  more  personal  interest 
than  statesmanship ;  but  I  could  not  conceive  of 
any  method  of  ridding  the  country  of  this  in 
fluence  and  power,  and  had  about  resolved  to  ac 
cept  the  situation  as  a  part  of  my  common  lot 
with  humanity. 

Doctor  Newell  stated  that  there  was  much  op 
position  to  the  parcelling  out  of  land  to  Negro 
farmers.  It  was  jeered  at  as  "  paternalism/'  and 
"  socialistic/'  and  "  creating  a  bad  precedent." 

"  But/'  said  he,  «  our  Bureau  of  Public  Utility 
carried  out  the  idea  with  the  final  endorsement 
of  the  people,  who  now  appreciate  the  wisdom  of 
the  experiment.  The  government  could  as  well 
afford  to  spend  public  money  for  the  purpose  of 
mitigating  the  results  of  race  feeling  as  it  could  to 
improve  rivers  and  harbors.  In  both  instances 
the  public  good  was  served.  If  bad  harbors  were 
a  curse  so  was  public  prejudice  on  the  race  ques 
tion.  It  was  cheaper  in  the  long  run  to  remove 
the  cause  than  to  patch  up  with  palliatives.  If 
the  Negro  was  becoming  vicious  to  a  large  extent, 
and  the  cause  of  it  was  the  intensity  of  race  prej 
udice  in  the  land,  which  confined  him  to  menial 
callings,  and  only  a  limited  number  of  those  ;  and 


A  Visit  to  Public  Buildings  103 

race  prejudice  could  not  be  well  prevented  owing 
to  the  misconception  of  things  by  those  who  fos 
tered  it ;  and  if  an  attempt  at  suppression  would 
mean  more  bitterness  toward  the  Negro  and 
danger  to  the  country,  then  surely,  looking  at  the 
question  from  the  distance  at  which  we  are  to 
day,  the  best  solution  was  the  one  adopted  by  our 
bureaus  at  the  time.  At  least,  we  know  the  plan 
was  successful,  and  '  nothing  succeeds  like  suc 
cess  ! ' 

"  I  am  inclined  to  the  opinion  that  the  politi 
cians,  judging  by  the  magazine  article  I  gave  you," 
said  he,  "  were  quite  anxious  to  keep  the  Negro 
question  alive  for  the  party  advantage  it  brought. 
In  the  North  it  served  the  purpose  of  solidifying 
the  Negro  vote  for  the  Republicans,  and  in  the 
South  the  Democrats  used  it  to  their  advantage ; 
neither  party,  therefore,  was  willing  to  remove 
the  Negro  issue  by  any  real  substantial  legisla 
tion.  Enough  legislation  was  generally  proposed 
pro  and  con  to  excite  the  voters  desired  to  be 
reached,  and  there  the  efforts  ended." 

I  could  not  but  reflect  that  the  triumph  of 
reason  over  partisanship  and  demagoguery  had  at 
last  been  reached,  and  that  the  American  people 
had  resolved  no  longer  to  temporize  with  measures 


104  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

or  men,  but  were  determined  to  have  the  govern 
ment  run  according  to  the  original  design  of  its 
founders,  upon  the  principle  of  the  greatest  good 
to  the  greatest  number. 

No  President  since  Grant  was  ever  more  abused 
by  a  certain  class  of  newspapers  and  politicians 
than  President  Roosevelt,  who  adopted  the  policy 
of  appointing  worthy  men  to  office,  regardless  of 
color.  He  said  that  fitness  should  be  his  rule  and 
not  color.  In  his  efforts  to  carry  out  this  policy 
he  met  with  the  most  stubborn  resistance  from 
those  politicians  who  hoped  to  make  political  cap 
ital  out  of  the  Negro  question.  To  his  credit  let 
it  be  said  that  he  refused  to  bow  the  knee  to  Baal 
but  stood  by  his  convictions  to  the  end. 

I  found  from  the  published  reports  of  the 
Bureau  of  Statistics  that  the  Negro's  progress  in 
one  hundred  years  had  been  all  that  his  friends 
could  have  hoped  for.  I  give  below  a  compara 
tive  table  showing  the  difference  : 

A.  D.  1900  A.  D.  2004 

Aggregate  Negro  Wealth $890,000,000. . .    $2,670,000,000 

Aggregate  Negro  population. . .       8,840,780. . .  21,907,079 

Per  cent,  of  illiteracy 45  per  cent.. . .  2  per  cent. 

Per  cent,  of  crime 20  per  cent 1  per  cent. 

Ratio  of  home  owners 1     in    100  ...  1  in  30. 

Ratio  of  insane 1    in  1000  ...  1  in  500 

Death  rate 20  per  M  . . .  5  per  M. 


A  Visit  to  Public  Buildings  105 


Number  of  lawyers  

A.  D.  1900 
250  

A.  D.  2004 
5  282 

Number  of  doctors                     . 

800  .... 

11  823 

150  

2,111 

Number  of  teachers  

30,000  

200  603 

Number  of  preachers  
Number  of  mechanics  .  . 

75,000  .... 
80.000.. 

250,804 
240.922 

I  noticed  that  Negroes  had  gained  standing  in 
the  country  as  citizens  and  were  no  longer  objects 
for  such  protection  as  the  whites  thought  a  Negro 
deserved.  They  stood  on  the  same  footing  legally 
as  other  people.  It  was  a  pet  phrase  in  my  time 
for  certain  communities  to  say  to  the  Negro  that 
they  "  would  protect  him  in  his  rights/'  but  what 
the  Negro  wanted  was  that  he  should  not  have  to 
be  protected  at  all !  He  wanted  public  sentiment 
to  protect  him  just  as  it  did  a  white  man.  This 
proffered  help  was  all  very  good,  since  it  was  the 
best  the  times  afforded,  but  it  made  the  Negro's 
rights  depend  upon  what  his  white  neighbors  said 
of  him, — if  these  neighbors  did  not  like  him  his 
rights  were  nil.  His  was  an  ephemeral  existence 
dependent  on  the  whims  and  caprices  of  friends  or 
foes.  True  citizenship  must  be  deeper  than  that 
and  be  measured  by  the  law  of  the  land — not  by 
the  opinion  of  one's  neighbors. 

But  the  voice  of  the  politician  who  wished  to 


106          Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

contort  civil  into  social  equality  was  now  hushed. 
He  no  more  disgraced  the  land,  and  a  Negro  could 
have  a  business  talk  with  a  white  man  on  the 
street  of  a  Southern  city  without  either  party  be 
coming  subjects  of  criticism  for  practicing  "  social 
equality." 


CHAPTER  YI 

A   RIDE    WITH     IRENE 


SOON  after  this  talk  Miss  Davis  and  I  visited 
prominent  places  in  the  city  of  Phoenix.  I 
had  anxiously  waited  for  this  opportunity. 
An  uncontrollable  desire  to  fulfill  this  engagement 
had  grown  on  me,  from  the  day  she  informed  me 
that  she  had  planned  the  outing.  We  visited  Mc- 
Pherson's  monument,  and  standing  with  head  un 
covered  in  its  shadow,  I  said  that  I  was  glad  to  see 
that  the  cause  he  fought  for  was  recognized  as  a 
blessing  to  the  South  as  well  as  to  the  North. 
She  replied  that  some  of  her  relatives  perished  in 
defense  of  the  South,  but  she  had  been  often  told 
by  her  father  that  her  ancestors  considered  slavery 
a  great  wrong  and  liberated  their  slaves  by  will. 
"  In  fact,"  she  remarked  with  womanly  intui 
tion,  "  I  can  see  no  reason  for  their  having  had 
slaves  at  the  outset.  Why  could  n't  the  Negroes 
have  served  us,  from  the  first,  as  freemen,  just  as 

107 


108  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

they  did  after  their  emancipation  ?  What  was  the 
necessity  for  adopting  a  system  that  gave  a  chance 
for  the  brutal  passions  of  bad  men  to  vent  them 
selves?  The  whole  country  has  suffered  in  its 
moral  tone  because  of  slavery,  and  we  are  not  as 
pure  minded  a  nation  to-day  as  we  should  have 
been  without  it." 

I  replied  that  it  was  commercialism  that  fixed 
slavery  in  the  nation  and  rooted  and  grounded  it 
so  deep  that  scarcely  could  it  be  eradicated  with 
out  destroying  the  nation  itself.  I  noticed  that 
she  had  none  of  the  Southern  woman's  prejudice 
against  "  Yankees,"  so  prevalent  in  my  day,  and 
that  she  was  far  enough  removed  from  the  events 
of  the  Civil  War  to  look  at  them  dispassionately. 

What  a  difference  doth  time  make  in  people 
and  nations.  What  is  wisdom  to-day  may  be  the 
grossest  folly  to-morrow,  and  the  popular  theme 
of  to-day  may  be  ridiculed  later  on.  Ye  "  men 
of  the  hour  "  beware  !  The  much  despised  Yankee 
has  taught  the  South  many  lessons  in  industry,  in 
the  arts,  sciences  and  literature,  but  none  more 
valuable  to  her  than  to  forsake  her  prejudice 
against  the  evolution  of  the  Negro. 

We  rode  out  to  Chattahoochee  farm,  noted  for 
its  picturesqueness  and  "  up-to-dateness,"  a  paying 


A  Ride  with  Irene  109 

institution  entirely  under  the  management  of  Ne 
groes.  The  superintendent  was  a  graduate  from 
the  State  Agricultural  College  for  Negroes,  near 
Savannah. 

"  Are  there  any  other  farms  of  this  kind  in  the 
state  under  Negro  management,"  I  asked. 

She  replied  that  there  were  many,  that  a  ma 
jority  of  the  landowners  of  the  state  had  found 
it  profitable  to  turn  vast  tracts  of  land  over  to 
these  young  Negro  graduates,  who  were  proving 
themselves  adepts  in  the  art  of  scientific  farming, 
making  excellent  salaries,  and  returning  good  div 
idends  on  the  investments. 

I  remarked  that  I  used  to  wonder  why  this 
could  not  be  done  with  the  young  Negroes  com 
ing  out  from  such  schools — since  their  ante-bellum 
fathers  were  so  successful  in  this  line — and  I 
further  said  that  this  movement  might  have  been 
inaugurated  in  my  day,  but  for  the  opposition  of 
the  politicians,  who  approached  the  Negro  ques 
tion  generally  with  no  sincere  desire  to  get  ef 
fective  results,  but  to  make  political  capital  for 
themselves. 

She  at  once  suggested,  "  And  so  you  believe  it 
was  a  good  idea  then  to  dispense  with  the  poli 
ticians  ?  " 


110  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

"  Indeed,"  said  I,  "  they  were  horrible  stumps 
in  the  road  of  progress." 

We  ended  our  ride  after  a  visit  to  the  park, 
which  was  a  beautiful  spot.  It  served  not  only 
as  a  place  of  recreation,  but  Musical,  Zoological, 
Botanical  and  Aquarian  departments  were  open 
to  the  public,  and  free  lectures  were  given  on  the 
latest  inventions  and  improvements,  thus  coupling 
information  with  recreation,  and  elevating  the 
thoughts  and  ideas  of  the  people.  I  noticed  the 
absence  of  the  old  time  signs  which  I  had  heard 
once  decorated  the  gates  of  this  park,  "  Negroes 
and  dogs  not  allowed."  Of  course  Irene  had  never 
seen  or  heard  of  such  a  thing  and  I  therefore  did 
not  mention  my  thoughts  to  her.  She  was  a 
creature  of  the  new  era  and  knew  the  past  only 
from  books  and  tradition.  I  had  the  misfortune, 
or  pleasure,  as  the  case  may  be,  of  having 
lived  in  two  ages  and  incidents  of  the  past  would 
continually  rise  before  me  in  comparison  with  the 
present. 

On  reaching  my  room  that  evening  I  felt  that 
my  trip  with  Miss  Davis  had  been  very  agreeable 
and  very  instructive,  but  still  there  was  an  aching 
void — for  what  I  did  not  know.  Was  it  that  we 
did  not  converse  on  some  desired  subject  ? 


CHAPTER  VII 

DR.    NEWELL     AND   WORK   OF    THE    YOUNG    LADIES' 
GUILDS 

"rTIHESE  Guilds,"  said  Dr.  Newell,  taking 
my  arm  as  we  left  the  dinner  table  one 
afternoon,  "  are  most  excellent  institu 
tions.  Nothing  has  done  more  to  facilitate  a 
happy  solution  of  the  so-called  Negro  problem  of 
the  past  than  they,  and  their  history  is  a  most 
fascinating  story,  as  it  pictures  their  origin  by  a 
a  young  Southern  heroine  of  wealth  and  standing 
with  philanthropic  motives,  who  while  on  her  way 
to  church  one  Sunday  morning  was  moved  by  the 
sight  of  a  couple  of  barefooted  Negro  children 
playing  in  the  street.  Her  heart  went  out  to 
them.  She  thought  of  the  efforts  being  made  for 
the  heathen  abroad,  when  the  needy  at  our  very 
doors  were  neglected.  Moved  towards  the  work 
as  if  by  inspiration,  she  gave  her  whole  time  and 
attention  and  considerable  of  her  vast  wealth  to 
organizing  these  guilds  all  over  the  country.  She 

111 


112  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

met  with  much  opposition  and  was  ridiculed  as  the 
'  nigger  angel/  but  this  did  not  deter  her  and  she 
lived  to  see  the  work  she  organized  planted  and 
growing  in  all  the  Southland.  Cecelia  was  her 
name  and  the  incorporated  name  of  these  organ 
izations  is  the  Cecilian  Guild." 

"  I  should  be  glad  to  read  the  history  of  this 
movement/ '  said  I,  "  for  all  I  have  learned  about 
it  through  Miss  Davis  and  yourself  is  exceedingly 
interesting." 

"  One  of  the  problems  met  with  in  the  outset 
was  that  of  the  fallen  woman/'  said  the  Doctor, 
"  although  the  Negroes  were  never  so  immoral  as 
was  alleged  of  them.  You  will  recall  that  after 
the  Civil  War  many  of  the  slave  marriages  were 
declared  illegal  and  remarriage  became  necessary. 
Twenty-five  cents  was  the  license  fee.  Thousands 
showed  their  faithfulness  to  each  other  by  com 
plying  with  this  law — a  most  emphatic  argument 
of  the  Negro's  faithfulness  to  the  marriage  vows. 
Day  after  day  long  files  of  these  sons  of  Africa 
stood  in  line  waiting  with  their  '  quarters '  in 
hand  to  renew  their  vows  to  the  wife  of  their 
youth.  Many  were  old  and  infirm — a  number 
were  young  and  vigorous,  there  was  no  compul 
sion  and  the  former  relations  might  have  been 


Dr.  Newell  113 


severed  and  other  selections  made ;  but  not  so, 
they  were  renewing  the  old  vows  and  making  legal 
in  freedom  that  which  was  illegal  now  because  of 
slavery.  Would  the  500,000  white  divorcees  in 
America  in  your  time  have  done  this  ?  "  the  doctor 
asked. 

"  Let  me  relate  to  you  a  story  connected  with 
the  work  of  one  of  the  Cecilian  Guilds,"  said  the 
doctor.  "  A  bright  faced  octoroon  girl  living  in 
one  of  our  best  Southern  homes  became  peculiarly 
attractive  to  a  brother  of  her  mistress,  a  young 
woman  of  much  character,  who  loved  her  maid 
and  loved  her  brother.  The  situation  grew  acute ; 
heroic  treatment  became  necessary  as  the  octoroon 
related  to  her  mistress  in  great  distress  every  ap 
proach  and  insinuation  made  by  the  young  Lotha 
rio,  his  avowals  of  love,  his  promises  to  die  for 
her,  his  readiness  to  renounce  all  conventionali 
ties  and  flee  with  her  to  another  state.  To  all 
this  the  octoroon  was  like  ice.  Her  mother  had 
been  trained  in  the  same  household  and  was  hon 
ored  and  beloved.  Her  father  was  an  octoroon — 
and  the  girl  was  a  chip  of  both  old  blocks.  The 
mistress  remonstrated,  threatened  and  begged  her 
brother  to  no  avail,  and  finally  decided  to  send 
the  girl  North,  as  a  last  resort,  a  decision  which 
H 


114          Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

pleased  the  maid,  who  desired  to  be  rid  of  her  tor 
mentor. 

"  But  the  trip  North  only  made  matters  worse. 
Two  years  after  Eva  had  made  her  home  with  a 
family  in  Connecticut,  John  Guilford  turns  up. 
He  had  been  married  to  his  cousin,  whom  he 
did  n't  love,  and  while  practising  medicine  in  one 
of  the  leading  cities  had  become  distinguished  in 
his  profession.  He  met  Eva  during  a  professional 
visit  to  her  new  home  in  Connecticut.  The  old 
flame  was  rekindled.  He  concealed  the  fact  of 
his  marriage  and  offered  her  his  hand,  stating  that 
he  must  take  her  to  another  town  and  keep  her 
incognito,  to  avoid  ruining  his  practice  by  the 
gossip  which  his  marriage  to  a  servant  girl  would 
naturally  create.  Fair  promises — which  generally 
do  (  butter  parsnips/  in  love  affairs,  at  least — 
overcame  the  fair  Eva;  she  consented  to  marry 
the  young  physician.  She  lived  in  another  town, 
she  bore  him  children,  he  loved  her.  Finally  the 
real  wife,  who  had  borne  him  no  offspring,  ascer 
tained  the  truth.  Her  husband  pleaded  hard  with 
her,  told  her  of  his  love  for  the  girl  and  how,  un 
der  the  spell  of  his  fondness  for  children,  and  fol 
lowing  the  example  of  the  great  Zola,  he  had 
yielded  to  the  tempter.  '  But/  he  begged,  '  for- 


Dr.  Newell  115 


give  me  because  of  your  love — save  my  name  and 
our  fortune.'  This  she  finally  did.  Poor  Eva, 
when  her  second  child  was  four  years  old,  died, 
never  knowing  but  that  she  was  the  true  wife  of 
her  deceiver.  Her  children  were  adopted  by  the 
Guilfords  as  their  own,  grew  up  and  entered  so 
ciety  under  the  Guilford  name  and  no  one  to-day 
will  charge  them  with  their  father's  sin." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

WITH  IRENE  AGAIN 


I  FREQUENTLY  saw  Irene  during  the  few 
weeks  of  my  sojourn  at  the  Newell  residence, 
but  hers  was  a  busy  life  and  there  was  not 
much  time  for  tete-a-tete.  One  evening,  however, 
she  seated  herself  by  my  side  on  the  veranda  and 
amid  the  fragrance  of  the  flowers  and  the  songs  of 
the  birds  we  had  an  hour  alone  which  passed  so 
swiftly  that  it  seemed  but  a  moment.  Time  hangs 
heavy  only  on  the  hands  of  those  who  are  not  en 
joying  it.  I  had  noticed  her  anxiety  for  a  letter 
and  her  evident  disappointment  in  the  morning 
when  the  pneumatic  tube  in  the  Newell  residence 
did  not  deliver  it. 

Not  purposely,  but  unavoidably,  I  saw  a  few 
days  later  an  envelope  postmarked,  "  Philippines." 
I  ventured  to  say,  with  an  attempt  at  teasing,  that 
I  trusted  she  was  in  good  humor  to-day  since  her 
letter  had  come,  and  surmised  that  it  bore  "  a  mes- 
116 


With  Irene  Again  117 

sage  of  friendship  or  love  "  for  her.  She  adroitly 
avoided  the  subject,  which  was  all  the  evidence  I 
wanted  to  assure  me  of  the  truth  of  my  theory  as 
to  its  contents.  The  clue  was  given  which  I  in 
tended  to  establish  in  asking  the  question.  Love 
may  be  blind  but  it  has  ways  for  trailing  its  game. 

Finding  no  encouragement  for  pursuing  this 
subject  further,  I  turned  to  the  discussion  of  books 
and  finally  asked  if  she  had  read  an  old  book  which 
in  my  day  used  to  be  referred  to  as,  "  Tom  Dixon's 
Leopard's  Spots."  She  said  she  had  not,  but  had 
seen  it  instanced  as  a  good  example  of  that  class 
of  writers  who  misrepresented  the  best  Southern 
sentiment  and  opinion.  She  stated  that  her  in 
formation  was  that  there  was  not  a  godly  character 
in  the  book,  that  it  represented  the  Southern  people 
as  justifying  prejudice,  and  ill  treatment  of  a  weaker 
race,  whose  faults  were  admittedly  forgivable 
by  reason  of  circumstances.  She  also  stated  that 
"  the  culture  of  the  present  time  places  such  writ 
ers  in  the  same  class  with  that  English  Lord  who 
once  predicted  that  a  steamer  could  never  cross 
the  Atlantic  for  the  reason  that  she  could  never 
carry  enough  fuel  to  make  the  voyage." 

"  And  probably  in  such  cases  the  wish  was  father 
to  the  thought,"  I  added. 


118          Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

She  also  had  heard  of  those  false  prophets  whom 
history  had  not  forgotten,  but  who  lived  only  in 
ridicule  and  as  examples  of  error.  She  seemed  to 
be  ashamed  of  the  ideas  once  advocated  by  these 
men,  and  charitably  dismissed  them  with  the  re 
mark  that,  "It  would  have  been  better  for  the 
cause  of  true  Christianity  had  they  never  been  lis 
tened  to  by  so  large  a  number  of  our  people,  as 
they  represented  brute  force  rather  than  the 
Golden  Rule." 

I  heard  with  rapt  attention.  Although  I  had 
already  seen  much  to  convince  me  of  the  evolu 
tion  of  sentiment  in  the  South,  these  words  sank 
deeper  than  all  else.  Here  was  a  woman  of  aris 
tocratic  Southern  blood,  cradled  under  the  hills  of 
secession  and  yet  vehement  in  denunciation  of 
those  whom  I  had  learned  to  recognize  as  the 
beacon  lights  of  Southern  thought  and  purpose ! 
And  when  I  reflected  that  her  views  were  then 
the  views  of  the  whole  South,  I  indeed  began  to 
realize  the  wonderful  transformation  I  was  being 
permitted  to  see.  I  silently  prayed,  "  God  bless 
the  New  South !  "  My  heart  was  full,  I  felt  that 
I  had  met  a  soul  that  was  a  counterpart  of  my 
own, — "  Each  heart  shall  seek  its  kindred  heart, 
and  cling  to  it,  as  close  as  ever." 


With  Irene  Again  119 

The  pent-up  feelings  of  my  breast  must  find 
some  expression  of  admiration  for  her  lofty  ideals 
of  joy,  for  the  triumph  I  had  been  permitted  to 
see  of  truth  over  error  in  the  subjugation  of  Amer 
ica's  greatest  curse,  prejudice,  and  finally  of  the 
meeting  with  a  congenial  spirit  in  flesh  and  blood, 
and  of  the  opposite  sex ;  which  alone  creates  for 
man  a  halo  peculiarly  its  own. 

I  was  hardly  myself,  and  I  burst  forth  with, 
"  Irene,  are  you  engaged  to  the  man  in  the  '  Philip 
pines  '?" 

I  was  rather  presumptuous,  but  the  gentle  re 
ply  was,  "  I  will  tell  you  some  other  time  " — and 
we  parted. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE    PRIZE    ESSAY 


IN  looking  for  the  cause  of  so  many  improve 
ments  I  found  that  the  Bureau  of  Public  Util 
ity  had  been  of  great  service  to  the  country 
in  bringing  about  such  a  happy  solution  of  the 
Negro  problem.  Among  other  novel  methods 
adopted  I  found  they  had  established  public  board 
ing  schools.  I  was  astonished  to  learn  that  they 
were  based  on  some  suggestions  made  by  a  Negro 
of  my  own  times,  in  an  essay  which  had  won  a 
prize  of  $100  offered  by  a  Northern  philanthropist 
The  writer  was  a  Southern  Negro  from  the  state  of 
North  Carolina.  His  ideas  were  carried  out  in  a 
general  scheme  of  education  for  the  Negro. 

The   good  results  of  this  course  have  proved 
their  wisdom;  in  fact  the   results  were   of  such 
importance  as  to  warrant  my  reproducing  part  of 
what  he  wrote  : 
120 


The  Prize  Essay  121 

THE  KIND  OF  EDUCATION  THE  NEGKO  NEEDS 

"I  have  noticed  a  growing  tendency  in  the 
writings  of  those  whites  who  discuss  the  racial 
question,  in  the  newspapers,  towards  helpfulness 
and  kindness  to  the  Negro  race.  Some  articles 
are  very  bitter,  abusive,  and  unfair,  the  writers 
seeming  to  be  either  playing  to  the  galleries  of  a 
maudlin  sentiment  or  venting  personal  spleen — 
but  in  the  main  this  is  not  so.  The  Negroes,  who 
withal  had  rather  love  than  hate  white  people, 
are  generally  thankful  for  all  expressions  favor 
able  to  themselves.  They  realize  as  a  mass  that 
there  has  grown  up  within  the  last  thirty  years  an 
idle,  vicious  class  of  Negroes  whose  acts  and  habits 
are  of  such  a  nature  as  to  make  them  objection 
able  to  their  own  race,  as  well  as  to  the  whites. 
What  to  do  with  this  class  is  a  problem  that  per 
plexes  the  better  element  of  Negroes,  more, 
possibly,  than  it  does  the  whites ;  since  their 
shortcomings  are  generally  credited  to  the  whole 
Negro  race,  which  is  wrong  as  a  fact  and  unjust 
in  theory. 

"  This  vicious  element  in  the  race  is  a  constant 
subject  of  discussion  in  Negro  churches  and  in 
private  conversation.  It  is  a  mistake  to  say  that 
crime  is  not  condemned  by  the  better  class  of  Ne- 


122  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

groes.  There  may  be  a  class  that  attend  the 
courts  when  their  '  pals  '  are  in  jeopardy  and  who 
rejoice  to  see  them  exonerated,  but  the  real  sub 
stantial  Negro  man  is  seldom  seen  '  warming  the 
benches '  of  court  rooms.  Unlike  the  white  spec 
tators,  who  are  men  of  leisure  and  spend  their 
time  there  out  of  interest  in  what  is  going  on,  and 
often  to  earn  a  per  diem  as  jurors, — the  leisure 
class  in  the  Negro  race  is  generally  composed  of 
those  who  have  '  served  time '  in  prison  or  of  their 
associates. 

"  The  Negro  problem,  as  now  considered,  seems, 
so  far  as  the  discussion  of  it  is  concerned,  to  be 
entirely  in  the  hands  of  white  people  for  solution, 
and  the  Negro  himself  is  supposed  to  have  no  part 
in  it,  other  than  to  '  wait  and  tend '  on  the  bid 
ding  of  those  engaged  at  the  job.  He  is  '  a  looker 
on  in  Venice/  I  therefore  offer  my  suggestion 
as  to  method  or  plan  with  fear  of  being  asked  to 
stand  aside.  Yet,  in  my  zeal  for  the  work  and  in 
my  anxiety  to  have  it  accomplished  as  speedily 
and  correctly  as  possible,  I  venture  a  few  sugges 
tions,  the  result  of  twenty  years'  observation  and 
experience  in  teaching,  which  appear  to  my  mind 
as  the  best  way  to  go  at  this  Herculean  task. 

"  In  the  first  place  I  suggest  that  the  boarding 


The  Prize  Essay  123 

school  is  the  only  one  fitted  for  the  final  needs  of 
the  young  of  the  race — a  school  where  culture  and 
civility  would  be  taught  hand  in  hand  with  labor 
and  letters.  The  main  object  in  education  is 
training  for  usefulness.  '  Leading  out '  is  the  mean 
ing  of  the  term  education,  and  what  the  young  of 
the  race  needs  is  to  be  lead  out,  and  kept  out  of 
vice,  until  the  danger  period  is  passed.  The  pub 
lic  schools  turn  out  the  child  just  at  that  period 
when  temptations  are  most  alluring.  From  the  age 
of  puberty  to  twenty-one  is  the  danger  time,  and 
the  time  of  forming  character.  The  kind  of 
character  then  formed  remains.  If  the  child  can 
be  steered  over  this  period,  under  right  influences 
and  associations,  the  problem  of  his  future  is  com 
paratively  settled  for  good,  otherwise  for  bad. 
Too  much  is  expected  of  the  public  schools  as 
now  constituted,  if  it  is  presumed  that  they  can 
mould  both  the  mind  and  the  heart  of  the  child ; 
when  they  usually  drop  him  just  at  the  period 
that  he  begins  to  learn  he  has  a  heart  and  a  mind ! 
He  is  mostly  an  animal  during  the  period  allotted 
to  him  in  the  public  schools.  Many  are  fortunate 
enough  to  have  parents  who  have  the  leisure  and 
ability  to  train  them  properly.  Some  follow  up 
the  course  in  the  public  schools  with  a  season  in  a 


124          Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

boarding  school — these  are  fortunate,  but  where 
is  the  great  mass?  They  became  boot-blacks, 
runaways,  '  dudes,'  or  temporary  domestics,  in 
which  calling  they  earn  money  more  to  satisfy 
their  youthful  propensities  than  for  any  settled 
purpose  for  the  future  of  their  lives. 

"  Out  of  six  hundred  pupils  who  had  left  one 
public  school  in  Virginia  I  found  only  85  who  had 
settled  down  with  any  seemingly  fixed  purpose. 
I  counted  196  who  had  become  domestics,  and, 
either  married  or  single,  are  making  orderly  citi 
zens.  The  rest  have  become  mere  bilge  water 
and  are  unknown.  Among  the  girls  fourteen  are 
of  the  demirep  order.  The  public  schools  are  do 
ing  some  work  it  is  true — a  great  work,  all  things 
considered — but  their  '  reach  '  is  not  far  enough. 
What  the  young  of  the  Negro  race  needs,  beyond 
all  things,  is  training — not  only  of  the  head,  but 
of  the  heart  and  hand  as  well.  The  boarding 
school  would  meet  the  requirements,  if  properly 
conducted-  The  girl  and  boy  should  remain  at 
useful  employment  under  refined  influences  until 
the  habit  of  doing  things  right  and  acting  right  is 
formed.  How  can  the  public  schools  mould  char 
acter  in  a  child  whom  they  have  for  five  hours, 
while  the  street  gamins  have  him  for  the  rest  of 


The  Prize  Essay  125 

the  day  ?  And  further,  as  before  stated,  when  the 
child  leaves  the  public  schools  at  the  time  when 
most  of  all  he  is  likely  to  get  into  bad  habits  ? 

"  Good  home  training  is  the  salvation  of  any 
people.  Many  Negro  children  are  necessarily 
lacking  in  this  respect,  for  the  reason  that  their 
parents  are  called  off  to  their  places  of  labor  dur 
ing  the  day  and  the  children  are  left  to  shift  for 
themselves.  Too  often  when  the  parents  are  at 
home  the  influence  is  not  of  the  most  wholesome, 
thus  there  is  a  double  necessity  for  the  inaugura 
tion  of  a  system  of  training  that  will  eliminate  this 
evil.  The  majority  of  working  people  do  not  earn 
sufficient  wages  to  hire  governesses  for  their 
children, — if  they  should  quit  work  and  attempt 
the  task  for  themselves  the  children  would  suffer 
for  bread,  and  soon  the  state  would  be  called  upon 
to  support  them  as  paupers.  The  state  is  unable 
in  the  present  condition  of  public  sentiment  to 
pass  upon  the  sufficiency  of  wages  from  employer 
to  employee,  but  it  can  dictate  the  policy  of  the 
school  system.  All  selfish  or  partisan  scruples 
should  be  eliminated  and  the  subject  should  be  ap 
proached  with  wisdom  and  foresight,  looking  solely 
to  accomplishing  the  best  results  possible. 

"  My  idea  is  to  supplement  the  term  of  the  public 


126  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

schools,  which  might  be  reduced  to  four  years,  by 
a  three  years'  term  in  a  public  boarding  school  in 
which  the  pupil  could  do  all  the  work  and  produce 
enough  in  vacation  to  make  the  school  self-sus 
taining  ;  except  the  item  of  the  salaries  of  the 
teachers,  who  would  be  employed  by  the  state. 
Make  three  years  in  these  schools  compulsory  on 
all  who  are  not  able  to  or  do  not,  select  a  school 
of  their  own  choice.  Three  years'  military  service 
is  demanded  of  the  adults  in  most  of  the  European 
states,  which  is  time  almost  thrown  away  so  far  as 
the  individual  is  concerned,  but  a  three  years'  serv 
ice  in  schools  of  this  kind  would  be  of  the  great 
est  advantage  of  the  child  and  state  as  well. 

"How  it  can  be  done 

"  There  is  idle  land  enough  to  be  used  for  the  es 
tablishment  of  such  schools  in  every  township  in 
the  South,  and  with  the  proper  training  in  them, 
the  pupils  from  such  institutions  would  come  out 
and  build  up  hundreds  of  places  that  are  now  go 
ing  to  waste  for  lack  of  attention.  The  solution 
of  the  race  problem  cannot  be  effected  by  talk 
alone,  nor  by  a  reckless  expenditure  of  public 
funds,  but  if  the  state  is  to  undertake  the  educa 
tion  of  its  children  with  good  citizenship  in  view 


The  Prize  Essay  127 

— thus  becoming  as  it  were  the  parens  patrice, 
then  let  the  job  be  undertaken  as  a  parent  would 
be  likely  to  go  at  it  for  his  own  children.  In 
well  regulated  communities  wayward  children  are 
placed  in  homes  which  the  wisdom  of  experience 
has  found  to  be  the  best  place  for  them,  and  they 
come  out  useful  citizens.  If  the  youth  of  the 
colored  race  is  incorrigible  because  of  instinct  or 
environment,  or  both,  the  place  for  them  is  in 
some  kind  of  home  where  they  can  be  protected 
against  themselves  and  society,  and  trained  and 
developed.  Let  them  have  four  years  of  training 
in  the  public  schools  and  emerge  from  these  into 
'  a  boarding  and  working  school/  This  would 
be  far  better  than  furnishing  a  chain  gang  system 
for  them  to  go  into  after  bad  character  has  been 
formed. 

"  (  An  ounce  of  prevention  is  worth  a  pound  of 
cure'  right  here,  and  is  a  cheaper  and  a  more 
substantial  investment.  Experience  shows  that 
the  vicious  become  more  vicious  by  confinement 
in  the  chain  gangs,  and  it  not  infrequently  hap 
pens  that  individuals,  after  having  been  degraded 
by  a  first  sentence,  become  outcasts  and  spend 
from  a  half  to  two-thirds  of  their  lives  thereafter 
in  prison.  The  chain  gang  system  can  hardly  be 


128          Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

urged  in  any  sense  as  a  reformatory,  and  from  the 
frequent  returns  thereto  of  the  criminal  class  can 
be  hardly  styled  as  a  first-class  preventive  of  crime. 
It  is  simply  an  institution  in  which  criminals  can 
be  kept  out  of  their  usual  occupations.  While 
they  are  so  confined  crime  is  that  much  decreased, 
but  it  opens  up  again  on  their  exit. 

"  The  value  of  the  boarding  school  idea  as  a  sup 
plement  to  the  public  school  system  is  borne  out 
by  the  statistics  of  the  boarding  schools  already 
established  for  colored  people  by  private  funds. 
The  pupils  turned  out  by  these  schools  are  a  credit 
to  the  race  and  the  state.  They  are  good  citizens, 
they  accumulate  property,  they  are  industrious 
and  upright.  There  is  not  one  case  in  a  thousand 
where  you  find  them  on  the  court  records.  They 
are  the  genuine  '  salt  of  the  earth,'  so  far  as  the 
product  of  the  schools  for  the  freedmen  is  con 
cerned.  The  public  schools  have  been  the  feeders 
in  a  large  measure  of  these  private  schools,  but 
only  a  small  percentage  of  those  who  leave  the 
public  schools  ever  reach  private  schools.  Under 
the  plan  above  suggested  all  pupils  will  spend 
three  years  in  a  private  school,  or  a  school  of  that 
nature  which  will  accomplish  the  same  end. 

"  If  the  Negro  has  a  greater  native  tendency  to 


The  Prize  Essay  129 

crime  than  the  other  races,  as  is  urged  by  some, 
then  it  is  necessary  to  take  more  care  in  protect 
ing  him  against  it.  If  his  disease  is  of  a  more 
malignant  type  than  ordinary  when  it  attacks  him, 
then  the  more  heroic  should  be  the  remedy.  It 
is  as  illogical  to  apply  a  system  of  education  to  a 
child  who  is  not  prepared  for  it  as  it  would  be  to 
treat  a  patient  for  appendicitis  when  he  has  the 
eczema.  Results  are  what  the  state  wants,  and 
if  the  schools  now  established  are  not  giving  them, 
the  system  should  be  changed  to  one  that  for 
thirty  years  has  been  a  success.  The  money  sent 
South  by  Northern  charity  has  not  been  wasted. 
Some  people  think  it  has  destroyed  some  farm 
hands — this  may  be  true,  but  it  has  created  larger 
producers  in  other  lines  fully  as  beneficial  to  the 
state  as  farming. 

"The  state  is  suffering  because  of  its  criminal 
class  both  white  and  black,  and  it  will  continue  to 
do  so  until  this  cloud  is  removed,  and  in  under 
taking  the  education  of  its  citizens,  the  state  is  not 
working  for  the  farmers  especially  (as  some  seem 
to  imply  by  their  arguments  on  this  subject)  but 
for  a  higher  type  of  citizenship  along  all  lines. 
'  More  intelligence  in  farming,  mining,  manufac 
turing,  and  business '  is  the  motto,  a  general  up- 
i 


130  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

lift  in  which  all  shall  be  benefited.  Neither  the 
farmer,  the  miner  nor  the  manufacturer  can  hope 
to  build  up  a  serf  class  for  his  special  benefit. 
The  state  has  not  established  the  school  system 
for  that  purpose,  and  should  the  theory  once  ob 
tain  that  it  was  so  established,  the  handwriting 
would  at  once  appear  on  the  wall.  The  ideal 
school  system  is  that  in  which  each  citizen  claims 
his  part  with  all  the  rest.  No  line  should  be 
drawn  in  the  division  of  the  funds  to  the  schools, 
and  as  a  fit  corollary  to  this,  they  should  not  be 
established  to  foster  the  financial  interests  of  any 
one  class  of  citizens  as  against  another.  Pro 
bono  publico  is  their  motto  and  may  it  ever  re 
main  so  ! " 

I  might  add  that  as  a  substantial  proof  of  the 
great  success  of  the  new  system  of  Negro  educa 
tion  the  Southern  states  have  joined  in  preparing  a 
great  Negro  Exposition,  open  to  Negroes  all  over 
the  world,  in  which,  it  is  expected,  a  fine  showing 
will  be  made  by  members  of  the  race  in  almost 
every  field  of  human  endeavor. 


CHAPTER  X 

SAD  NEWS    FOR  IRENE 


TWO  years  have  passed  since  Irene  promised, 
on  the  veranda  of  the  Newell  residence,  to 
tell  Gilbert  Twitchell  if  her  hand  was 
pledged  to  the  man  in  the  Philippines  from  whom 
she  had  received  a  letter.  Other  and  sadder  news 
had  come  since  that  time.  The  young  officer 
(Kennesaw  Malvern)  was  dead.  He  was  accident 
ally  shot  during  a  target  practice  on  a  U.  S.  vessel 
cruising  in  the  Philippines,  where  by  the  way  peace 
and  independence  have  long  prevailed.  Irene  was 
now  in  black  for'  him.  She  saw  Gilbert  Twitchell 
not  quite  so  often  as  before,  but  her  mourning 
robes  made  it  unnecessary  that  she  should  answer 
the  question  he  propounded  to  her  on  the  ve 
randa. 

At  the  first  opportunity,  however,  Gilbert  told 
her  that  he  loved  her,  but  that  he  would  not  ask 
her  hand  in  marriage  till  such  a  time  as  she  thought 

131 


132  Light  Ahead  for  the  Negro 

proper.  Her  reply  was  that  her  whole  soul  was 
a  complete  wreck.  She  felt  as  if  the  world  had 
no  further  charm,  and  that  death  would  be  wel 
come  if  she  knew  she  would  be  with  him. 

But  time  works  many  changes,  even  in  such  a 
constant  and  abiding  force  as  a  true  woman's  love. 
God  made  them  sincere,  it  may  be  said,  but  few 
there  are  that  stand  the  test  of  time,  and  the  as 
saults  of  a  persistent  man's  devotion.  Many  would 
freeze  their  hearts  if  they  could,  but  the  manly 
temperature  is  too  high  in  most  cases  and  they 
melt  sooner  or  later  under  its  radiations.  Some 
times  in  her  despair,  in  her  dilemma,  in  her  war 
between  the  heart  force  and  the  will,  she  resolves 
to  marry  her  beseecher  "  to  be  rid  of  him,"  too 
considerate  of  his  feelings  to  say  "  no,"  and  too  true 
to  former  pledges  to  say  "  yes."  What  tunes  in 
deed  may  "  mere  man  "  play  on  such  heart-strings  ! 

All  this  was  not  the  case  with  Irene  exactly, 
but  it  was  true  in  some  particulars,  for  Irene  was 
a  woman,  and  the  only  important  truth  to  Gilbert 
was  that  the  year  2007  saw  them  husband  and 
wife  and  that  the  love  that  once  went  to  the 
Philippines  was  bestowed  on  the  man  she  helped 
rescue  from  his  trip  in  an  air  ship. 


